Mountain Dew Pulls Ad Deemed ‘Racist’ by Critics
Published at
Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images(NEW YORK) — An ad for Mountain Dew created by the founder of hip-hop group Odd Future has been pulled after critics lambasted its violent undertones, with one calling it “arguably the most racist commercial in history.”
PepsiCo, which owns Mountain Dew, said it was pulling the ad, created by Odd Future co-founder Tyler Gregory Okonma, who is known by the stage name, Tyler, the Creator.
“We apologize for this video and take full responsibility,” read a statement provided by a PepsiCo spokeswoman. “We have removed it from all Mountain Dew channels and Tyler is removing it from his channels as well.”
The ad stars a character, Felicia the Goat, in a police lineup among members of Odd Future.
Boyce Watkins, a finance professor from Syracuse University and social commentator, wrote a blog post about the ad, entitled, “Mountain Dew Releases Arguably the Most Racist Commercial in History.”
“Of course, in the world of Mountain Dew, every single suspect is black,” wrote Watkins, who previously published a lecture series called “Commercialized Hip-Hop, the Gospel of Self-Destruction.”
In the video, a woman is trying to identify the suspect while being threatened by the goat, which tells her, according to Watkins, “I’m going to get out of here and do you up.”
“It appears that Mountain Dew is right on board with the degradation and disrespect for the entire African American community being pursued by the worst in the hip-hop community,” Watkins wrote. “This ad has to be one of the most irresponsible pieces of trash in the history of corporate advertising.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio