In Japan, Nike ad on racism, bullying sparks debate over foreign firm criticising social mores
A Nike video advertisement about bullying and racism has triggered a fierce backlash in Japan, including some calls to boycott the sporting goods giant.
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.
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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."
A user on Twitter said foreigners who did not like Japanese culture and values "should not live in Japan ... I would like you to go elsewhere".
"Nowadays, you often see one or two people of different nationalities going to school perfectly peacefully. The one that's prejudiced is Nike," another said.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka at the WTA Finals tennis tournament in Shenzhen on October 27, 2019. Photo: AFP alt=Tennis star Naomi Osaka at the WTA Finals tennis tournament in Shenzhen on October 27, 2019. Photo: AFP
Japan has traditionally prided itself on being racially homogeneous, although successful athletes such as Naomi Osaka, who is Haitian-Japanese, have been challenging that image.
Osaka, the world's top-ranked women's tennis player, has repeatedly had to stand her ground when it comes to her race.
In January last year, a sponsor apologised for using a cartoon of Osaka that depicted her with pale skin, while in September in the same year, a Japanese comedy duo suggested in one skit that she "needed some bleach".
According to Kyle Cleveland, a professor of Japanese culture at the Tokyo campus of Temple University, claims by some Japanese that discrimination or bullying did not exist were disingenuous.
"Without a doubt, bullying is ubiquitous in Japan, and it has been a long-standing source of great concern among school authorities, parents and the children who are suffering themselves," he said. "And bullying is a leading cause of suicide among young people."
Cleveland said bullying was not always driven by racism, but a broader lack of acceptance of diversity and differences among people - although racism was one of the most "obvious and explicit" examples.
Tiffany Rachel, 22, an African-American university student who has lived most of her life in Japan, said the Nike video could play a role in encouraging young people to begin talking about race.
"In the US, celebrities and well-known companies act as examples of how an ideal world, without discrimination, should and could be," Rachel said.
"But in Japan, they do not want celebrities to do that ... So Japan is not having that debate," she said. "Nike is setting a good example with this ad, [especially] for the younger generations, who are more open to these ideas."
Nike Japan was not immediately able to comment on the response, but said on its website it believed in the transformative nature of sports.
"We have long listened to minority voices, supported and spoken for causes that fit our values," it added. "We believe sports have the power to show what a better world looks like, to bring people together and encourage action in their respective communities."
Additional reporting by Reuters
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
