Singapore broadcaster in hot water after ‘brownface’ advert sparks anger, apology
- The ad, part of a government-initiated campaign for cashless transactions in the city state, featured actor Dennis Chew from broadcaster Mediacorp
- His skin was darkened to depict an Indian man and a Malay woman wearing a headscarf. He also portrayed a Chinese man and woman
Race is a sensitive issue in Singapore, which is home to ethnic Chinese, ethnic Indians and Muslim Malays, as well as a large number of expatriates from all over the world.
The ad, part of a government-initiated campaign for cashless transactions in the tech-savvy city state, featured actor Dennis Chew from broadcaster Mediacorp as four characters.
His skin was darkened to depict an Indian man and a Malay woman wearing a headscarf, and he also portrayed a Chinese man and a Chinese woman. Each character was shown holding a plate of food paid for electronically.
“Brownface in a Singaporean ad in 2019. I thought we already went over this,” magazine editor Ruby Thiagarajan said on Twitter, in a post that had been retweeted nearly 3,000 times by Monday.
“Brownface” or “blackface” are terms referring to the practice of darkening an actor’s skin to portray a person of a different race.