Automaker axes ad

after “slant-eyed” slipup:

A commercial for Daihatsu’s extremely successful Max compact car began airing on Japanese TV in the first week of November. It featured a Japanese woman driving the car through the streets of a typical European town.

Each person the woman drove past — from an elderly couple to a young woman to a policeman – greeted her by placing their index fingers on the edge of their eyes and pulling them back to show her a “slant-eyes” face,

which is of course a racist gesture used by whites to poke fun at East Asians. “We only ever wanted to use the gestures to emphasis the sleek design of the headlights on the Max,” a company spokesman says. “Nobody picked up on this in pre-screening tests we did with viewers. However, we are terribly sorry to have upset some viewers in a manner we never dreamed of.”

Mainichi Daily News