Tyler, The Creator Is Defensive About The 'Racist,' Sexist Mountain Dew Ad He Made
Earlier today we reported that Mountain Dew pulled its new ad that rapper Tyler, The Creator made after it was widely criticized for both racism and glorifying violence against women.
The ad stars Felicia the Goat (voiced by Tyler) in a police lineup with five black men because he beat up waitress for not giving him enough Mountain Dew. He goes on to intimidate the severely battered woman — taunting, "Snitches get stitches, foo," and "Keep ya mouth shut, I'm going to get out of here and Dew you up!" — before she runs out crying and screaming.
PepsiCo immediately released this statement: "We apologize for this video and take full responsibility. We have removed it from all Mountain Dew channels and Tyler is removing it from his channels as well."
Tyler, The Creator, however, seems less than apologetic.
He hasn't said much on the topic to his 1.6 million Twitter followers, but he did say that he wanted to go at it with political analyst Dr. Boyce Watkins, who wrote the article "Mountain Dew Releases Arguably the Most Racist Commercial in History."
Watkins wrote, "Of course, in the world of Mountain Dew, every single suspect is black. Not just regular black people, but the kinds of ratchety negroes you might find in the middle of any hip-hop minstrel show. Mountain Dew has set a new low for corporate racism. Their decision to lean on well-known racial stereotypes is beyond disgusting. This doesn't even include the fact that the company has put black men on par with animals."
Tyler, The Creator hasn't said anything about the other controversial element of the commercial: The celebratory intimidation of the female victim.
Although on April 25 he did tweet:
Although later that day he wrote:
Although PepsiCo told Business Insider that it asked Tyler, The Creator to take the video off of his YouTube channel, it declined commenting on whether or not it had asked him to apologize.