‘Woke propaganda’ strikes again as Boots Christmas advert causes boycott

'Woke propaganda' has come under fire once again as grounds for a nationwide brand boycott.

Ahead of the most anticipated season of the year, companies are participating in arguably, the biggest cultural event of the season, Christmas advertisements.

Boots, as one of the biggest Health and Beauty Stores in Oxford, has released their own advertisement earlier this week, starring Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh as Mrs. Claus. The ad also featured queer actors and drag queens playing Santa's Elves.

While most viewers and customers of the beauty store saw nothing wrong with the lively and comedic advert, others saw it as an attack, referring to it as a push of the ‘woke agenda’.

‘It’s really not that bad.’

People from both sides took to X (formerly Twitter) to express their opinions. David Poulden refers to the advert as ‘links to anti-white racism’.

While Steven Wilson, summarizes the outrage, “[…] Are they really that pissed off that a fictional character has a fictional wife who isn’t white?”

A Turkish Muslim student from Brookes, Cagla Isbuga, responded to the outrage, “I’m so confused why people are making this a big thing. Especially in this day and age, it’s really not that bad.”

This outrage isn’t new, as pointed out by a member of the Oxford Brookes African Caribbean Society, “Ever since black people came here, white people think that diversity is an attack on them.”

She pointed out a similar outrage that happened in 2020 over a Sainsbury’s Christmas advertisement, “It’s just a part of a long history of [a very specific] patriotic white British people thinking that not seeing themselves in a role is an attack on their identity [...] It’s just racism.”

In Oxford, despite the rich multi-national background that has been built upon centuries of history and migration, outrage towards representation has often been a hot button issue.