An ad featuring a brown faced Ashton Kutcher was taken down from the web after social media users called it “racist”. The ‘Popchips’ ad showed Kutcher as four different characters in a dating show. In one of his appearances, he wore a heavy brown make-up, a blue embroidered sherwani, mustache, a big gold watch and a ring. He introduces himself as the 39-year old Raj, a “Bollywood producer looking for the most delicious thing on the planet”, in a fake Indian accent. The video received a lot of criticism from viewers, calling it “racist and bad in taste”. Anil Dash wrote in a blog post that the ad was “hackneyed, unfunny”. The CEO of the potato chips company, Keith Belling, issued an apology saying that the ad did not intend to offend anyone. He takes full responsibility and apologizes to those who were offended.
Source: The Times of India
