Some people credit the Egyptian Empire as the most influential, others the Byzantine Empire, almost all, however, acknowledge the work of the Kardashian Empire in shaping the early 21st century, from the culture to the core beliefs we hold. And to think, this empire just hit its 10 year anniversary in 2017. The biggest accomplishment, if we were to narrow it down, was definitely when Kendall Jenner (key member and daughter of matriarch Kris Jenner) ended racism this past April — something that essentially almost seemed impossible. With the power of a Pepsi can and a commercial that debuted worldwide, Kendall Jenner was able to show the world that racism was a thing of the past! Kendall Jenner for President 2020!
That’s what I imagine an actual Kardashian fan would write. I felt the need to start the article in a sarcastic tone, simply because I could not handle Kendall Jenner and her response to the Pepsi Ad Controversy in a serious manner. Her whole response, the tone of it — everything just seemed too unreal to me. If you don’t remember the Pepsi Ad or if you just don’t know what happened, let me break it down:
On April 4, 2017, Pepsi released an advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner joining a protest (taking a break from her photo shoot and modeling duties), where there was cop interference. Kendall Jenner took it upon herself to cool the situation and prevent any police brutality by offering the police officer a can of Pepsi and all of a sudden he realized the wrongs of law enforcement officers and he wasn’t racist anymore. You can definitely expect to catch him at the next BLM protest, fighting for black rights. Thanks, Kendall! Now clearly this Ad was Pepsi’s terrible and tone-deaf attempt to capitalizing off of social issues and movements like Black Lives Matter and attempting to make money off of the influx in social awareness amongst our youth.
What the Pepsi Ad and Kendall Jenner, instead did, was trivialize issues like police brutality and mock movements like Black Lives Matter.
The internet didn’t let Pepsi or Kendall get away with this though, in fact, Twitter seemed to enjoy dragging the commercial and Jenner. Kudos to the internet and Twitter for serving justice when others clearly cannot. Many awaited Jenner’s response to the incident, wondering what she could possibly say or do to recover her tarnished reputation, however as expected, she did nothing. She made the awful mistake of choosing to let the situation “die down” and we all know Twitter will never let this die.
Kendall Jenner, however, did finally address the situation in a clip for the upcoming season 14 of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.” In the clip, which shows some of the most “dramatic” moments of their year, she says, while whining about the backlash she received from the Pepsi Ad, “it feels like my life is over” to which Kim responds “you made a mistake.” Now, this is only a clip but all it shows is that she has managed to turn this situation about police brutality and racism about herself.
Kendall, honey, in the wise words of your sister Kourtney, “people are dying,” like actually dying. Dying because of police brutality, racism, and discrimination, something which the Ad you starred in essentially mocked. Instead of making this about you, and crying about the fact your life is “over,” why not speak about the issue? Enlighten yourself. Admit your faults. By ignoring the issue and making it about yourself and only worrying about how this Ad will affect your life, you are doing nothing but backing up people’s perception of you, that you’re a bratty ignorant reality TV star. Kendall Jenner only having to worry about her “reputation” when discussing matters like police brutality and Black Lives Matter is the epitome of her privilege. It shows that while there are people actually dying due to these deep-rooted issues, Kendall could care less because she’s never known the struggle.
She doesn’t seem to learn from her mistakes either, after the Pepsi Ad, she and her sister Kylie Jenner released shirts with icons like Biggie and Tupac and plastered their faces over them. This seems to be a Kardashian-Jenner clan problem though, they often cross the line and do things very ignorantly since they are not informed and they’re privileged enough to the point where they can ‘afford to be ignorant’. These issues will never affect them individually, and so they don’t bother educating themselves and that’s why things like the Pepsi Ad happen in the first place.
Kendall probably didn’t create the concept of that ad, it was another group of people, but had she any knowledge on these issues she would have been able to tell the fact that this commercial trivialized issues like BLM and police brutality and could have backed down. I don’t know if that’s too much to expect from her but I would think that after making a mistake, she’d educate herself and apologize. Her remarks about the issue don’t even discuss the issue, she’s just having a pity party and claiming her life is “over” which is simply not appropriate. Kendall Jenner managed to turn an issue regarding BLM and police brutality and center it all around herself when in reality, it would have been much easier to apologize, educate herself, realize why what she did was wrong, and how the Ad made light of a serious issue.
I suppose we’ll have to wait until the full episode in which she discusses the incident comes out in order to judge what she says, however, so far all I see is a self-pitying reality star who’s not sorry she made a mistake but upset that she got dragged.
