A new Dior perfume ad starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp has this weekend been criticised for appropriating Native American culture.
The trailer for the $150 (Dh367) men’s fragrance called Sauvage also features the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s Canku One Star, a Fancy War dancer dressed in a traditional outfit. It shows Depp walking in Utah, as the dancer performs on a cliff as a woman – played by Tanaya Beatty, a Canadian actor of First Nations descent – follows from afar. Depp also plays a famous riff by Shawnee musician Link Wray on guitar.
The film is called We Are the Land and is described in the French fashion house’s marketing materials as an ‘ode to Mother Earth’, adding that the inclusion of the dancer is meant to be ‘a powerful tribute to this culture, portrayed with immense respect’.
That is not how it has been perceived, however. Scholars and critics have deemed the campaign completely racist.
"It is so deeply offensive and racist," said Crystal Echo Hawk, chief executive of network IllumiNative, reports the Guardian. "I don't know how anyone in 2019 can think a campaign like this can go down well."
April Reign, creator of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, also weighed in on Twitter. "On its face, this is horrible," she wrote. "Then you confirm the name: Sauvage. Like 'savage', but fancier. THEN I clicked through… and Johnny Depp is the face of this. Depp, who immersed himself in cultural appropriation with Tonto," she says in reference to the criticism the actor drew for his portrayal of the Native American character in Disney's 2013 remake of The Lone Ranger.
Reign added: “@dior”, you can’t be serious.”
On its face, this is horrible. Then you confirm the name: Sauvage. Like “savage,” but fancier. THEN I clicked through (so others wouldn’t have to) and Johnny Depp is the face of this. Depp, who immersed himself in cultural appropriation with Tonto. @dior, you can’t be serious. https://t.co/tOFBuFMEeM
— April (@ReignOfApril) August 30, 2019
Other commenters also slammed the name of the product.
Using Indigenous people and our culture for your new perfume aesthetic and feeling the need to name it "Sauvage" is a completely bad take. Do better @Dior https://t.co/56mraJpBYQ
— Tyra Maney (@_ConanOBrien) August 30, 2019
I really don’t know how companies like @Dior so blindly come up with a name or campaign like Sauvage, and appropriate indigenous culture for the sake of selling a product. Does someone at the table not say, “You know, let’s side step this and not go viral for the wrong reasons”? https://t.co/9xYtiUrm0D
— ernestsewell 🏳️🌈 (@ernestsewell) August 30, 2019
However, in response for requests for a comment by various media outlets, Dior has sent out a press release from non-profit Americans for Indian Opportunity, which says it collaborated with the brand, music video director Jean-Baptiste Mondino and Depp on the campaign, providing advice to ensure 'authentic inclusion of Native American images in the film promoting Depp’s signature parfum’.
They aimed to move ‘away from cliches in order to avoid the cultural appropriation and subversion that so often taints images representing Native peoples’, it says.
The release also says it made Depp an honorary citizen of the Comanche Nation in 2012.
Dior has since removed its tweet and all references to the campaign across its social media platforms.
