In Japan, Nike ad on racism, bullying sparks debate over foreign firm criticising social mores
- The video depicts the experiences of three teenagers, including a biracial Japanese girl, who experience discrimination and bullying
- While some people welcomed the message, others slammed the US company for passing judgment on Japan’s social and cultural values
The two-minute commercial, titled Keep Moving: Yourself, the Future, was released on Monday and depicts the experiences of three teenage girls who experience daily discrimination and are brought together by their shared love for football.
One scene shows a girl, who has a Black father and Japanese mother, having her hair pulled by students. Also featured are an ethnically Korean girl, and a Japanese teenager who is the target of bullies while also receiving academic pressure from her parents.
The ad culminates with the teenagers on the same team combining to score a goal and the message, “You can’t stop sport”, with the last word overlaid in red so it reads instead, “You can’t stop us”.
The video, released as the Black Lives Matter movement spreads across the United States and elsewhere, has attracted some 14.3 million views on Nike’s Twitter feed and 9.6 million views on YouTube.
While there were many comments supportive of the campaign, some people in Japan were critical of a foreign company passing judgment on the country’s social values.
“I’m tired of companies and celebrities thinking they have some kind of moral platform,” one person wrote on the SoraNews 24 website. “Nike, like many clothing companies, uses forced labour in China and other parts of the world. Maybe they should do a commercial about that.”