{"id":17174,"date":"2014-04-24T03:04:51","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T03:04:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T00:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:04:06","slug":"avril-lavigne-music-video-hello-kitty-sparks-racial-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=17174","title":{"rendered":"Avril Lavigne music video &#8216;Hello Kitty&#8217; sparks racial controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Avril Lavigne&#8217;s new music video &#8220;Hello Kitty&#8221; has some crying racism.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The upbeat and colorful video shows Lavigne, 29, wearing a cupcake tutu and prancing around Tokyo with a quartet of expressionless Asian girls dressed in matching outfits following close behind.<\/strong> Other clips show her playing air guitar and drinking sake. She even sings in Japanese in one part of the pop-rock song from her self-titled fifth studio album.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[This] video is an embarrassment in any language,&#8221; Billboard magazine&#8217;s Jason Lipshutz wrote.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LiaYDPRedWQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>But Lavigne says it&#8217;s definitely not racist.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!!&#8221; Lavigne tweeted Wednesday, clearly laughing out loud.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video&#8230;specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lavigne&#8217;s video drew comparisons to Gwen Stefani and her Harajuku girls.<\/strong> While they appeared in several of Stefani&#8217;s videos and tours, the singer introduced them once as her &#8220;imaginary friends.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Look for Rino Nakasone!<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7YbGN1BMSLc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Comedian Margaret Cho blasted Stefani in 2005<\/strong> for creating what she considered a &#8220;minstrel show&#8221; that reinforced negative stereotypes about Asian women.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pah-LLLEEASE!<\/em><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Avril Lavigne&#8217;s new music video &#8220;Hello Kitty&#8221; has some crying racism. The upbeat and colorful video shows Lavigne, 29, wearing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1002],"tags":[2001],"class_list":["post-17174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-music"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Avril Lavigne&#8217;s new music video &#8220;Hello Kitty&#8221; has some crying racism. The upbeat and colorful video shows Lavigne, 29, wearing","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Music"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":154,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":1,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1002\">Music<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}