Avril Lavigne is currently touring South America with five shows upcoming in Brazil. Along the way she’s been busy defending the video from her most recent self-titled album, ‘Avril Lavigne’.
The pastel-hued confection, for a tune called Hello Kitty, was temporarily removed from Youtube this week. It features the 29 year-old Canadian pop-princess prancing around in various Japanese locations with four Japanese back-up dancers.
It has been described as insipid and offensive. An “embarrassment in any language”, according to Billboard magazine, and USA Today described the video’s “cringeworthy glory” suggesting overtones of racism.
Late Wednesday, Avril Lavigne responded: .
“RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!!” she tweeted to her 15.6 million followers. “I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. “I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan.”
Compared to a lot of other pop-culture video content out there, many fans don’t understand the outcry. But then a little controversy doesn’t necessarily hurt an artist.
Sales of the new album have been dismal everywhere, except Japan, where it has already gone platinum.
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