'Curry Police': A problematic music video leads to a problematic backlash

May 29, 2021 | News On Japan

May 29, 2021 (Japan Times) - It's not often that an embassy has to issue an apology to an entire country because of a video on YouTube.

Earlier this month, that’s exactly what happened when the Embassy of Japan in India posted a notice to its Facebook page, stating, “It was regrettable that this utterly inappropriate video had offended many Indian friends.”

The video in question was for a song called “Curry Police” by the group Candy Foxx. Japanese entertainers have long used stereotypes as the punchlines for jokes — remember the blackface Eddie Murphy impression or the JAL ad? — and it’s a style of humor Candy Foxx embraces in its other offerings, though those clips also poke fun at Japan.

The video for “Curry Police” has been taken down from the official Candy Foxx YouTube page but, because this is the internet, nothing ever really disappears and it has been re-uploaded to other channels.

The clip is set in the landscape of northern India, with bare-chested men in turbans and women wearing ghagra choli — a type of traditional Indian dress — taking part in a Bollywood-style dance sequence. In one scene, a man uses a piece of naan as his ticket to board a boat to Japan; in another, the owner of a curry restaurant is taken hostage by Japanese thugs, only to be led to a magic lamp that releases the Hindu god Ganesha (someone needs to let Candy Foxx know that the story of Aladdin’s lamp was an Arabic thing).

It’s worth noting that the footage of the thugs is recycled from a previous video, “Sushi Yakuza,” which includes a battle between Japanese criminal elements and a bunch of Indian cooks, with the yakuza coming out on top. That video is still online and has been watched over 47 million times.

The people behind Candy Foxx are no strangers to controversy. Two years ago, the same group went by the name Represent Earth and staged a publicity stunt that included fake claims of power harassment, ultimately landing the band Maximum The Hormone in trouble with its fans.

The “Curry Police” video has elicited thousands of complaints from both the Indian and Japanese community. Japan-based Indian YouTuber Rom Rom Ji put out a response titled “Indians Should Stand Together in Japan,” in which he cites previous instances of Indian stereotyping in Candy Foxx’s work and calls for a boycott.

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