We never expected all that much from Ashton Kutcher, but to cover his face in brown makeup and play an Indian man named Raj in a cringe-worthy commercial for Popchips?
That's a new low, even for Ashton Kutcher.
The bad, bad idea was released online yesterday to a worldwide “Oh, no, they did-n't.”
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Wrote Salon: “Somewhere, Charlie Sheen is laughing and saying, 'At least I never did that.'
And Gawker: “. . . Kutcher and Popchips broke the cardinal rule of racial humor: If you're going to make a joke about a race other than your own, for the love of God be funny about it.”
The most thought-out response came from technology guru Anil Dash, who penned a post titled, “How To Fix Popchips' Racist Ad Campaign.”
“I can't imagine I have to explain this to anyone in 2012, but if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad 'funny' accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course,” he wrote, providing a list of suggested action steps for the company.
Popchip's founder, Keith Belling, had a conversation with Dash and wrote an apology “to anyone we offended.” Popchips has since pulled the ad, but you can see it here for now.
