Recently, French luxury fashion company’s Christian Dior tweeted a new video for its perfume, which stirred people’s racial security. Later, the brand had to take down the video after it faced backlash from the people.
“An authentic journey deep into the Native American soul in a sacred, founding and secular territory. More to come,” said the tweet. It was accompanied by a picture of a Native American performing a traditional dance on the Western bluff with a setting sun behind him.
In the video, Johnny Depp is seen playing guitar in a poncho. In other scenes, a Native American along with a long dark-haired model is seen, both in a Native American outfit.
The video was part of a campaign of Sauvage. Johnny Depp has been part of this campaign since 2015 after signing a rumored USD 5 million deal.
The ad soon gathered a lot of attention (mostly bad). People accused the company Dior of deploying insensitive depiction of Native Americans in order to sell its products.
Hanay Geiogamah, a UCLA professor, playwright, and historian who is a member of the Kiowa tribe said that it’s an arrogant appropriation of imagery that is unimaginatively executed. “What offends me is that they so casually appropriate imagery like that and blend it together for their own purposes.”
Seeing all the public rage and backlash, finally, Dior had to take down the video. Dior had to go through similar backlash from people back in 2017 for another advertisement. It also featured Pirates of the Caribbean star Johnny Depp. The ad came just after the news of the split between Johnny and Amber Heard and was featured with the strapline ‘wild at heart’.