Are these adverts offensive and racist? 

Make connections to the key concepts of representation, culture, identity, and power. 

Upon watching the D&G China Campaign Advert, I felt as though the ways in which the Chinese had been depicted reflected a strong sense of orientalism and imbalance of power between East and West. This is evident through the ad’s narration that condescendingly guides the oblivious Chinese model through using her chopsticks to eat ‘traditional’ Italian dishes, thus enforcing the idea that all Chinese are inexperienced and need to be taught to eat dishes from the West. However, this comes as no surprise as mass media often idealizes and romanticizes Western culture to the point that a dominant discourse takes place and the belief that “West is best” becomes widely normalised. 

Additionally, I also felt that the ad was greatly offensive towards the Chinese as they had been portrayed in an ignorant and animated manner. Such an example is apparent when the model giggles as though she is easily entertained and content with the generalized and insensitive way she is representing her culture. Where in real life, the fact is that the majority of the Chinese population does not look nor act in this manner, therefore shedding light on many of the generalizations that have been made within this advert. 

Nonetheless, I do believe that D&G may have had positive intent to reach out to the heavily populated Chinese market. However, the ways in which they carried out their marketing and market research clearly displayed adverse implications on the representation of Chinese culture from a Western perspective.