Advertisements can be funny, intriguing, but also completely misplaced at times. Like it happened with this Kerala hospital which put up a board of Oscar winning Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman to advertise its skin treatments.
Sir, .@morgan_freeman your picture is used as a poster at a dermatology department advt board in hospital in Kerala, India.
— Rejimon Kuttappan (@rejitweets) January 31, 2022
Using your picture as sample, they are claiming to make everyone free from dark tan, wrinkles, pigments…. pic.twitter.com/54plREcswi
The Vadakara cooperative hospital has issued an apology for the now-removed photo of the African-American actor used to advertise services such as removal of skin tags, warts, milia, among other things.
The advert soon began to circulate on social media and invited severe criticism for its alleged racist tone. There has been substantial outrage on Twitter which led the hospital to apologise for the incident, and pull down the advert.
Here’s how Twitter users reacted to the incident:
Oh, my god! The dermatology department of a Kerala cooperative hospital is using the photo of Morgan Freeman to claim they can remove warts & skin tags in a single visit! Show respect & basic courtesy, people! @morgan_freeman pic.twitter.com/l9KkEe001k
— Sreejith Panickar (@PanickarS) January 31, 2022
This is grossly unfortunate that those who decided to use Mr. Freeman’s picture probably didn’t know the calibre of him as an actor and as a human.
— BankerComrade (@ChindanTweets) January 31, 2022
That's from an Indian state with highest literacy rate.
— Nishant ~ निशांत ~ நிஷாந்த் (@Nish__Mish) January 31, 2022
This is Not Good pic.twitter.com/5ekb4XgMUu
— Arjun (@arjunk11590) January 31, 2022
It's a local government hospital. I am sure that graphic designer has no idea who 'Morgan Freeman' is. He might have used any free stock image.. 🤦♀️
— Krishnapriya Venugopalan (@krishnapriya_v) January 31, 2022
I really hope Morgan Freeman is too busy to see this tweet…
— Piyush Chawla Fan Account (@daksanbri) January 31, 2022
Meanwhile, as per The New Indian Express, T Sunil, the marketing manager of the hospital, claims that the advert was a result of ignorance and not racial bias.
The picture was taken from the internet and the board displayed near the casualty on January 26 (Wednesday). When we came to know about the gaffe, it was removed on Saturday. The hospital has issue an apology on its Facebook page. There was no intention to defame the great actor.
-T Sunil to TNIE
Clearly, in this case, ignorance was anything but a bliss.
