On our podcast from last week, CB and I talked about the current racist shenanigans throughout the fashion industry, from Gucci’s blackface sweater to Burberry’s noose hoodie to Dolce & Gabbana being dumpster fire people. We spoke about it in the context of whether royal women should be held accountable for wearing problematic designers, and I made the argument that “cancelling” fashion labels gets very complicated, so no. Basically, I still think it should be a case-by-case thing for designers and fashionistas, and I also think that, well, everybody makes mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are stupid and racist and oftentimes those mistakes should have been caught long before the products went to market. But it also makes a difference when a company understands that they made a mistake and they apologize completely and acknowledge it. So it is with Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty.
Following criticism surrounding one of Rihanna’s latest Fenty Beauty launches, the brand has pulled the offending product from its lineup. Last week, Fenty Beauty announced a new line of bronzers and highlighter shades: Mo’ Hunny/Afternoon Snack, #PENNY4UTHOTS and Geisha Chic. The latter immediately sparked controversy online, with fans saying that the red color and name fetishizes Japanese culture.
One Reddit user who commented on the brand’s Instagram page calling out the product name received a direct message. “We hear you, we’ve pulled the product until it can be renamed. We wanted to personally apologize. Thank you so much for educating us,” it said.
Some fans pointed out that this isn’t the first time Rihanna’s been accused of cultural appropriation; her “Princess of China” music video, in which the singer portrays a heavily costumed Asian stereotype, received similar blowback. But according to watchdog Instagram account Estée Laundry, which posted about the highlighter snafu and the brand’s immediate response, many customers seemed satisfied with Fenty Beauty’s decision to pull and rename the product before it hits shelves on April 5.
“I wish more brands responded like this. Props to Fenty for listening and doing something about it,” one person DM’d the account, according to Estée Laundry’s Instagram Stories. “Fenty swallowed their pride and that is something admirable.”
Where art thou, people upset at #PENNY4UTHOTS? That name actually made me laugh, although most ladies probably wouldn’t be too happy at being called a thot. As for the geisha name… it should have been caught and canceled way before the product name announcement, absolutely. But I also think Rihanna and Fenty Beauty absolutely handled the screw-up in the right way. Everyone makes mistakes, and they caught it immediately, before the backlash even really began, and they pulled the product before it even went on the shelves. That’s what we need more of – an example of a company screwing up and fixing it thoroughly. (Of course, it still would have been better to not screw up at all, but we can’t have everything.)
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Rihanna’s social media.
Stereotypes and jokes about the peoples of and from Asia still seem to be perfectly acceptable in many quarters.
Was there any Asian involved in the development process, whom could’ve give an imput? I guess not.
Yes. This. So much so that in the year 2019…when all other forms of racism/sexism/homophobia/islamophobia/etc are being called out on the regular…I’ve seen literally dozens of Instagram “comedians” imitating nail salon workers in the most offensive way possible, and lots of comments excusing their behavior because it’s “accurate.” ???? They are making light of hard-working people who come to this country to create a better life for their families. It is never acceptable to make fun of people for accented English. They’re learning a second language. I’d like to see these “hilarious” comedians try to speak Vietnamese, or Korean, or Chinese, etc. This is just representative of the fact that Asians are the last accepted punching bag of the general public.
Thanks for amplifying on this. Still hearing radio DJs ‘joke’ about the accent, the Chinese language, and so on. Still seeing things in the print and online ads. It’s gross. They must think it’s ‘safe’ because of the myth about Chinese being the ‘model minority’ but speaking as a Jew, a member of another model minority, a) it’s a myth b) it’s still prejudicial c) it’s still hurtful. And the damaging stereotype that peoples from Asia will be “quiet and submissive” is used to justify this rot– “see? they’re not complaining.”
Not offensive in the slightest. Completely ridiculous… thought police at its finest.. when will this end? How will this end?
How is this even remotely racist?
This reminds me of that time Rihanna posted an image of a rice cake in seeming reference to Karrueche Tran. Anyone remember that?
Shes always been problematic, but shes always given a pass.
Ever since she bullied a girls prom dress inspired by a dress Rihanna wore before I’ve found her ugh.
Yeah. Rihanna seems to have some kind of specific beef against Asian culture, which makes me wonder why the large volume of people who loudly boycott Kat Von D makeup products for her anti-Semitic associations and anti-vax stance haven’t said a peep against Rihanna/Fenty Beauty. The only difference is that Fenty apparently has the better crisis management team.
South Asians too
Its okay for her to highlight one marginalised community but she does it, often at the expense of other communities. I used to follow fenty beauty religiously till I saw they never use an Asian or South Asian blogger/ influencer.
While I don’t think we should excuse her past behaviour, I think this move (which was far less offensive than the attacks on Karreuche), will actually cost her and her brand money. I think old Rihanna would have ignored this (much like Essie nail polish and their go go geisha Pink has been doing for years).
Rihanna’s team got her together quick on this one. perhaps she’s finally figured it out.
@lexilla that’s where my mind went right away as well!
Let’s also not forget the line from her song “sweeter than a ricecake”. Oh and in case anyone is wondering that photo of the rice cake is STILL on her Instagram page. Rih has nothing to do with this apology, these was skilled PR people. Rih doesn’t get a pass from me bc this is a pattern of behaviour.
That chest bag though lol. Every company should respond this way.
I don’t know… I lived in Japan for a while and tend to think Japanese people wouldn’t be offended by this. I mean, for starters geisha are objects of fetishisation. That’s kind of the point. And suggesting that calling something geisha chic is fetishisation of all Japanese women is almost more offensive because most Japanese women are not geisha and would likely be pretty offended if we referred to them all as geisha. Additionally, the Japanese use cultural touchstones from the west all the time – often in fetishistic ways. For instance, I used to go to a Karaoke bar called Cheers in Shibuya with girls dressed in classic American-style Cheerleader outfits or sometimes baseball jerseys worn as dresses, full of Japanese men who loved it. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I think sometimes we push our ideas onto other cultures and that is problematic. For sure fetishisation of asian women is problematic – I saw it when I lived there and there were problems sometimes with ex-pats fetishising Japanese women for sure. Is a lipstick called Geisha Chic part of the problem? I don’t know… I’m eh on that.
I agree. I have heard arguments about cultural appropriation where Japanese people have entered the fray and said that they like when people wear kimonos and want to know more about their culture. They rent out kimonos for that purpose! It’s not like the word “geisha” is offensive in and of itself. It’s not like “pickaninny pink” (which was definitely an OPI color in the early 2000s and as soon as I saw it I was like What. The. F***? )
Actually, I think this may be more problematic for Asian people of people of Asian or specifically Japanese descent living in the US or Europe. It’s always annoying to see our own culture reduced to clichĂ©s like Madonna did with Spanish tropes most Spanish people from her generation could not give a crap about.
And to be super politically incorrect, there are a lot of head-scratching things about the treatment of women in Japanese culture (as in ours) and Geishas are one of them. So personally I find it sillier the reference to Geishas (when will Fenty call a lipstick lotus feet in hommage to Chinese women objectification?) in the XXIrst century.
Fetishization of any aspect of an ethnicity/race inevitably leads to problems. It doesn’t matter if a small group of Japanese people are surveyed about whether or not they think something is “racist” or not. People will keep surveying until they get the response they want. It’s like asking your one black friend if they’re okay with something. That doesn’t speak for the entire community. There are always going to be people who think something is racist, and people who will disagree. It doesn’t matter whether you get the approval of one person or even a thousand. Because that’s not speaking for the entire community.
The problem is this kind of thing HURTS people, whether well-intentioned or not. Not just “hurting their feelings.” It literally leads to violence against Asian women, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere. Fetishization of Asian women in the West has led to great numbers of men traveling to Asia for sex tourism with certain twisted expectations of what they can do or say over there. And the vast majority of these women are not “empowered sex workers.” They are slaves who have been trafficked. They were born into crippling poverty and do not have any other options. These men pass on STDs that lead to chronic conditions, treat these women incredibly cruelly, and often seek out children or minors to exploit. And there are thousands of children born to these women as a result, with the men fleeing back to their home countries without taking responsibility, further contributing to the cycle of poverty for these women.
There have also been frequent cases in the U.S. and in Europe of Asian women specifically being targeted for sexual assaults. It is usually never reported in Western media because, again….racism against Asians is tolerated for some reason. In popular culture, there is simultaneous sexualization of Asian women while men are feminized and emasculated. This all contributes to second-class treatment of the Asian population.
I think it’s because in the West there’s a stereotype of Asians as being smart and well-to-do and there is a certain resentment amongst all the other races for that reason, which leads to grudges and a necessity to “tear down” successful people whom you perceive as a threat to your own community, for whatever reason. This is probably why racism is still tolerated so widely. There are vast differences between different Asian ethnicities in socioeconomic standing, poverty, education levels, etc., and yet treating Asians as a monolith by dismissing them as “geishas” furthers the economic disparities amongst the groups and reaffirms the notion that Asians CAN be treated differently and poorly because they are just gold-digging whores who slept their way to the top. Or something.
I’m sorry for my English, as it’s my second language.
That was amazingly well said.
no that was really good. thank you
First of all, your English is perfect. No need to apologize. Also, I second so many of the points you make here. The fetishization of Asian women does lead to more frequent sexual abuse and has caused a huge surge in trafficking of impoverished Asian women. There is an attitude among wealthy Western men that you can go to certain Asian countries and pay to do whatever you want to Asian women. These women are not empowered in any way. It is abuse and slavery.
Or you can go to a “spa” not far from Mar a Lago.
I saw this, pretty helpful, diagram yesterday where one of the first questions was whether the inspiration was from your own culture and the follow up was whether the inspiration was from a culture that is marginalized in your country. It doesn’t really matter what people in Japan do, because when we use something or name something the context is always going to be different and different contexts require different ways of doing and thinking.
I feel like at least the Thot one could be reclaiming the phrase. And it helps that it was done as a pun.
Overall though, I’m impressed with the quick response. While it probably should never have been even at the announcement stage without someone saying ‘hey, that might be a problem’ I do appreciate that they responded very quickly once someone called them out.
While Rihanna is one of my faves and I appreciate the way they’ve handled this – we also can’t overlook the fact that she has a history of fetishising and misappropriating Asian women/culture. Sure this is a mistake, I believe that, but this isn’t her first mistake in this vein – which makes it a little harder to swallow.
Lots of female artists will use and have used an Asian culture like this. Awareness travels slow.
Gwen Stefani comes to mind instantly
You are right a lot of artists have used Asain culture but Rih is the only one to insult people with terms like “rice cake”.
I’m not trying to take away from that. It just seems to me that as much as we might talk about appropriation, there has been the least amount of backlash to appropriation of an Asian culture, so lots of work to do.
Wilma I couldn’t agree more
Lip and nail colour names have reached peak ridiculous as it is, right?
There are so many people involved in the process of creating and launching a product, it baffles me not ONE person thought “hey this might be offensive”? Let’s hope there comes a time when companies don’t have to “apologize” because they don’t put out offensive sh*t in the first place.
This. Not quite as baffling as how that Gucci sweater made it through though.
That picture of her at the top in the shimmery brown sweater is stunning. It really brings out her eyes.
Geisha is a legit part of Japanese custom and tradition. It is not offensive to them. It was a thing of pride to be a geisha. People need to relax.
Mind you, Rihanna has a long history of racism towards Asians, starting with Karreche (spelling?) Tran. She has always been given a pass for it which is completely hypocritical.