The New York Times reported that Ashton Kutcher "Shows Many Faces" in Popchips' $1.5 million ad campaign. It failed to mention that one of those faces is in the equivalent of blackface.
Kutcher plays four different men in a fake video dating commercial: a Bruno-like fashion guru named Darl, a Russel Brand-esque hippie named Nigel, Swordish the biker, and finally Raj, an Indian in brown facepaint who says, "I was in a milking contest and I won it." The spot was made by ad agency Zambesi.
While Kim Kardashian, Jillian Michaels, Patti Stranger, and other celebrities are singing the ad's praises, others are calling it racist. Rapper Das Racist has tweeted, "Hey @aplusk, what's with the racist brown face video you talentless, pretending to care about sex trafficking piece of shit?"
Watch the video below and let us know what you think.
Please follow Advertising on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »