Do you still remember the advertisement on 8TV during Ramadan? It is an advertisement which pulled out the racist issue. Hence, there was an article written by Yow Hong Chieh which was published in The Malaysian Insider with the title of “Media Prima pulls out ‘racist’ Ramadan ads”. In short, I would like to sum up, in this series of Ramadan commercial, it shows how a Chinese girl being rude and obnoxious, included eating in public and wearing revealing clothes during the fasting month. The message that this commercial tried to convey was to urge non-Muslims to respect Muslin in fasting month. Public judged this commercial as racist because it is unfair to Chinese; this commercial showed that Chinese does not respect other culture and trying to imply the ‘negative’ side of other’s culture. Different individual might have different thought, opinion and perception towards this advertisement. To stand on a Muslim thought, they will feel its fine to have this advertisement and obviously they won’t feel offended of the commercial based on their understanding towards culture and beliefs. To stand on a non-Muslim perception, they might get offended as they don’t understand the cultures and beliefs of other race and the message of the commercial trying to convey.
According to Schriver (1997), he stated that an individual values and beliefs is a part of how they interact and interpret words and visuals. Individual with different cultures and beliefs and so, they might interpret it differently. Hence, Malaysia is a multicultural and multiracial country, so there might be racism issue being carry on. Nevertheless, Walsh (2006) mentioned that to understand the social purpose of a text and cultural context might change the perception and interpret differently towards commercial like what I’d mentioned above.
As living in Malaysia, a multicultural and multiracial country, we have to learn how to understand other race’s culture and also belief in order to achieve a peaceful society. According to Dr Fam, he stated that is important to realize that cultural sensitivity is not merely about understanding what causes offense, but it entails identifying and understanding local customs, traditions, values and consumer bahavious (Victoria University of Wellington, 2011). In my point of view, advertiser in Malaysia should observe and study the traditions, cultures and behaviors of each race which could provoke misunderstanding and misinterpretation by the public.
Schriver, K.A. 1997, Dynamics in document design, John Wiley & Sons, New York, USA
Walsh, M. 2006, "'Textual Shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts", Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-27.
Victoria University of Wellington, 2011, Local Values And Religious Beliefs Important When Advertising In Asia, [Online]<http://www.victoria.ac.nz/home/about/newspubs/news/ViewNews.aspx?>id=4664&newslabel=> [viewed on 15 Nov 2011]