Another TikToker Causes Outrage
The Colour Purple’s Failed TikTok Marketing Campaign
Why Were Black Creators Not Chosen to Promote the Movie?
A TikTok creator by the username: mimiermakeup has recently come under fire on the platform due to her widely incorrect and misrepresentation of the movie she was promoting, The Colour Purple. She described the movie as a “coming-of-age story” following the main character’s (Ceely’s) “transformation into the woman she is destined to be,” finally describing it as a “heartwarming” story.
TikTok creators, understandably, reacted negatively to this false portrayal of the movie and shamed her for not doing her research on what the movie is actually about as it is the complete opposite of what a heartwarming story is. If you haven’t read the book by Alice Walker or watched the previous 1985 Steven Spielberg rendition of the movie starring Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, it follows Celie’s harrowing tale in 1900s America, encountering physical and sexual abuse throughout her life, first by her father and then later on by her husband and her story of survival through trying to empower herself and the women struggling around her.
So, when you consider how dark the story actually is, you can now understand why there was so much rage felt by the TikTok community in reaction to this.
TikTok Creators speculated that mimiermakeup was paid a majority of the $40,000 funding allocated for the marketing campaign as she was the only one out of the originally targeted 8 creators who were supposed to get $5000 each (out of the $40,000) for a TikTok post encouraging followers to watch the movie. However, we do not know if she was the only one chosen for the project or if the other creators just chose not to post their own videos due to all the backlash she received.
Please check out this TikTok video of the creator @nosybystanders who has a clip of the now-deleted video which is also where I took these screenshots from, and her take on explaining the situation here…
The Croatian TikTok under backlash is thought to have been sought out due to them specifying wanting purple beauty tutorials, as she’s a make-up and beauty-based account.
Tiktokers found Warner Bros targets overall confusing as they seem to be wanting a light-hearted, jovial video when that is not what the movie is like at all.
The TikToker has since posted an apology video stating that she will not receive any funding for the marketing campaign, deleting the offending video, expressing her own ignorance and lack of research and preparation for the video as the cause of it. Check out her apology video here…
When we look at the terminology that is used in the marketing brief provided, we can see that she did in fact use the same wording used within it, such as the main offending phrase coming-of-age.
Without actual research on the movie or book it is based on; just from how it is described above, it is very easy to mistake the movie as something comparable to if they turned The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants into a musical. However, this does not excuse the actions of the TikTok creator as it is always vital to do research on anything before choosing to promote it. It also only takes 2 seconds to google a name and read a synopsis.
Other Tiktok creators reached out to a wider systemic problem and didn’t understand why no black creators were chosen to promote this movie in the first place as this problem would have been completely avoided as a black creator would have undoubtedly done research on a movie with black representation. Especially one such as this, which showcases a predominantly all-black cast with highly notable names such as Oprah Winfrey, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, and Halle Bailey.
Not only that but their target audience was African-American Women aged 35+, so why did they choose a 20-something European Woman to advertise the movie instead?
Because even when it’s for us, it’s not about us.
Unfortunately, this is a theme that black women are already familiar with and one that I hope will change in the future. Nonetheless, despite the failure of the marketing team in this instance, I still believe this movie is one worth watching.
What are your opinions on all this? Do you believe this was all an innocent mistake and that her apology makes up for it? Or do you think Warner Bros poorly made marketing campaign is all to blame? Let’s discuss in the comments!
The Colour Purple is set to be released on Christmas Day in US Theatres and on January 18th globally. You can watch the trailer below.
