The elaborately-styled video titled “Legenda Cun Raya” is essentially about a wealthy man in search of a wife. Many women vie for his attention, flaunting their beauty and talents. Alas the man is not impressed until he falls in love with the voice of a woman who sings for him.
When the woman reveals her face to him, he is repelled at the jet black hue of her skin. Later however, he looks relieved at discovering she has a fair complexion after all, once the black paint is washed off her skin.
Despite Watsons initially defending the video on account that it was based on legend, many Malaysians derided the advertisement as being tasteless, with one activist wondering if Watsons was even aware it was being insensitive when they used blackface.
Watson has since apologised.
But what is blackface and why is it deemed offensive?
Blackface is a form of makeup – made out of burnt cork – used by fair-skinned actors to represent a dark-coloured person.
According to a 2013 article by Blair LM Kelley, associate professor at North Carolina State University, blackface minstrelsy – which gained popularity in the late 1820s – perpetuated racial stereotypes.
Blackface minstrelsy were performances that revolved around mocking the behaviour of dark-skinned people and playing up racial stereotypes for laughs.
A popular character was Zip Coon, an educated, free African man who pronounced everything incorrectly. Yet another was Mammy, a hefty, African slave played by a man in a dress. African children, Kelley wrote, were depicted as unkempt and ill-raised piccaninnies.
Blackface was also popular in advertising, and used to great effect to push various products including cigarettes and toothpaste.
It is now however considered culturally insensitive and even outright racist to put on blackface for any reason.
Just last year, one of UK’s biggest folk events, the Shrewsbury Folk Festival, banned Morris dancers from performing with black paint on their faces following complaints that the centuries-old tradition was racist to the core.
However, some people have persisted in perpetuating racial stereotypes by featuring blackface.
In August 2016 a Malaysian television show apologised following an outcry on social media over a comedy skit featuring an actor in “blackface” makeup pretending to be American R&B singer and producer Usher. The skit was a parody of a recent performance by popular Malaysian singer Yuna and Usher in the US in June.
The parody however greatly upset Yuna, who said it’s racial undertones could very well have ended her career in the US.
In April, a South Korean television network came under fire for airing a sketch featuring a character in blackface and apologised later in a bid to placate their audience.
In March, Korean girl group Mamamoo apologised after a video clip aired at their concert, featured the quartet in blackface. The group had performed a parody of Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” while covered in black face paint.
The National Public Radio (NPR), an American privately- and publicly-funded non-profit membership media organisation, said the only way to overcome racial discrimination was to acknowledge that people, who were once oppressed, were likely to experience discrimination even to this day.
It was therefore important to implement policies that addressed racism and the effects it had on communities.
Similarly, American basic cable and satellite television network MSNBC, reported that bringing healing to all communities was vital in overcoming racism and its resulting divisiveness.
DoSomething, a global non-profit organisation meanwhile has made an effort to educate the public with a video on YouTube in 2015, aimed at promoting awareness through social media sites using #NoBlackface.
Earlier this month, more than 100 LGBT supporters in the UK signed a letter to stop the use of blackface during Gay Pride festivals. The LGBT supporters said that they should not be excluded in putting an end to racist stereotypes.
Over in Malaysia, racism rears its ugly head every so often, and the blackface video, supposedly steeped in legend, is yet another unfortunate reminder that Malaysia has a somewhat long way to go before we get our act together to erase all forms of racism.
Reporting by Ivy Chong and Afiqah Farieza.