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D&G quickly sabotaged themselves by putting out a controversial ad

that reproduces a Chinese Stereotype as the "Other".  

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It’s a three-ad series intended to promote D&G’s “The Great Show”, a fashion “tribute” (using this term lightly) to China, taking place in Shanghai.It showcases a Chinese woman beautifully dressed in a red sequin top and gold jewelry, true to the D&G style. She has her makeup done with winged eyeliner, red lip, and blush. The backdrop resembles a cliché Chinese restaurant with red lanterns and hanging calligraphy, which can be deemed as very predictable and overdone. Surprising enough, the controversy isn't about the clothes or cultural appropriation but instead the communication. 

 

Within the first four seconds of the video, the narrator fluent in Chinese mispronounces “Dolce & Gabbana” with an overdone Chinese accent which roughly sounded like "Dos an Gabana", for those who didn't catch on. Even though the presumed to be Chinese narrator is mocking his own native accent, it was still conceptually produced and distributed by a White European company. 

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Mocking the language or accent of another person's nationality/ethnicity stems from poking fun at the group's inability to speak "proper" English, especially in relation to (but not limited to) Asian speakers. It's one of the most acceptable forms of racial violence that makes people self-conscious and ashamed of their english speaking skills. Asian accents in particular are deemed as humorous and comical which has been popularized in movies like Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) through I. Y. Yunioshi and Sixteen Candles  (1984) through  Long Duck Dong.  For example, "ching chong" or any similar sounding gibberish is a popular way racists/comedians (Ex. Angela Johnson) try to imitate what Asian people are saying. Many assume all Asian people are a monolith even though they are just mocking the Chinese or Japanese language. This does not compare to British, French, Australian, Italian or any western accents which are seen as desirable or charming. These western countries see themselves as equal to one another.

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Vice Writer, Celeste Yim, said it best, " Asian accents is a mark of inferiority." 

D&G plays into this history of racism against Asians. 

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It's a minor detail most people won't catch on to. It's still extremely offensive that D&G assumes their Chinese consumers aren't able to pronounce Dolce & Gabbana correctly. It's immature and disrespectful. But the patronizing and condescending narrator continues...

 

The most controversial thing about the video(s) is the overall concept of having a man teaching an overly animated Chinese woman how to eat Italian food with chopsticks; The Pizza, Cannoli, and Spaghetti. She is instructed to hold the chopsticks in improper ways to find the best way to eat it. In the pizza version she "cuts" the pizza by holding one chopstick in each hand and pokes at it. The cannoli version, the dessert "is too big" for her and she instead sticks her chopstick in the filling. But why is she even eating Italian food with chopsticks anyway? I'll tell you, D&G has an outdated racist humor which only stereotypes Chinese people.

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When analyzing the three ads, I noticed its racializing difference through the interaction of food. It follows the notion of "Haha look at the Chinese lady not knowing how to eat something so common like Pizza!" Its focus is marking the difference between Eastern and Western cultures and then ploying it as a comical tactic against Chinese people for being the minority who isn't knowledgeable. The woman is acting out a false stereotype as the "outsider" who isn't cultured in relation to Italian food. It relates a lot to Orientalism in which Stuart Hall discusses (in chapter 4.) Hall states Orientalism functions to distinguish the Western world vs. The Eastern World, as a way to see the East as the exotic or the uneducated “other”and the West as dominant (261). With that same ideology, the Chinese woman in the ad represents a silly “other” who doesn't know how to eat foreign foods. It’s a bad joke. 

 

It plays on a stereotype of how the Asian race in particular are always labeled as foreigners because of a cultural difference but in reality, they’ve evolved with the times. Many people commented under the video pizza is such a common food in Chinese cities. It’s not like they’ve never seen it. As seen in the video, the woman's identity only revolved around the chopsticks as if she doesn't know how to use any other utensil or her hands. D&G played into a bad superiority complex of assuming Chinese people don't know how to eat food beside Chinese cuisine. 

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D&G faced backlash quickly by the Chinese audience and the campaign was taken down the same day it was posted. But it was too late, the damage had already been done. To make it worse Stefano Gabbana had made racist response as to why he supported and stood by his ad (pictured below).  This screenshot would act as a visual artifact to show yet again how designers don't care for other cultures and hold racist beliefs behind this big brand. Many Chinese D&G affiliated celebrities and models backed out of the show and expressed they would never buy from D&G ever again. They issued an apology which wasn't received well. The boycott greatly effected their business but it was a well deserved consequence.