[Contributed by Krystal Lim]
If Samsung were truly “driven by diversity and inclusivity” as they say, they shouldn’t have removed their advertisement featuring a Muslim mother and her drag queen son.
The fact that they removed the advertisement proves that they were just doing it for publicity. That’s why they had to take it down when the publicity felt like negative publicity to them.
Some background, in case you haven’t seen the news.
Earlier this week, Samsung’s advertisement featuring a Muslim mother expressing support for her drag queen son was abruptly removed.
This happened after conservatives in Singapore voiced their concerns about how they are trying to “push the LGBT ideology into a largely conservative Muslim community”.
Samsung responded by taking down the video. They also made a statement apologizing for the “insensitive and offensive” video and that they will “be more mindful”.
Samsung is evidently not as inclusive as they tried to make themselves out to be.
For years now, companies have been trying to leverage on the LGBTQA+ market especially when it came to pride month. They’d capitalize on such events to make pride products to ride on the hype, and become radio silent about their support for the LGBTQA+ community after.
It seems like Samsung was trying to do just that as well. When the idea of including a Muslim mother and her drag queen son was pitched, they were most probably thinking about the benefits of appearing inclusive.
That is, until Singapore’s loud conservative community, with a history making a big ruckus of everything that offends them, came into the picture.
Remember when ~20000 people signed a petition to cancel a black metal concert for an audience of 150? They also once complained about how the Disney-themed Christmas at Orchard Road undermines the true meaning of the season, saying that Disney has no relation to Christ. In these scenarios, they started petitions and wrote letters to the government about it.
Now Samsung angered both the conservatives and the LGBTQA+ community.
Samsung clearly weren’t sincere in their attempt to champion for LGBTQA+ causes to begin with. Otherwise they would have stood their ground and dealt with the criticism.
Now, as this Redditor says, they shot themselves in the foot by angering both the conservatives and the LGBTQA+ community.
