Ashton Kutcher’s video ad for Popchips has twitter going CRAZY!
When popchips released what they felt would be a cool viral video featuring the “Two and a Half Men” star participating in a dating service, many online immediately labeled the ad as racist.
Why you ask? Well… because Kutcher appears in the spot wearing “blackbrownface” and mockingly speaks in an Indian accent.
The commercial, which is clearly a parody of dating-service ads, has Kutcher playing Raj, a 39-year-old “Bollywood producer” who’s looking for love.
But few find it funny.
Details + watch video of the controversial ad below…
Several have spoken up about the ad and New York writer Anil Dash even wrote a long open letter demanding an apology from the Popchips company, Kutcher and others associated with it’s development.
“I think the people behind this Popchips ad are not racist. I think they just made a racist ad, because they’re so steeped in our culture’s racism that they didn’t even realize they were doing it,” Dash wrote.
He goes on to say, “I’ve always wanted to have very positive feelings about Ashton Kutcher ? he’s a totally mainstream celebrity who seemed to have sincerely embraced the tech startup world that I spend so much of my time in, and that should be a validation of our impact. Then I saw this shit right here:”
VIDEO: Ashton Does Dating Service