Budweiser slammed for using Charlotte 2016 protest footage in Super Bowl beer commercial

Charlotte will be featured briefly in one of the Super Bowl commercials Sunday, and critics say it has opened old wounds.

Budweiser’s “Typical American” ad features video from the 2016 Charlotte Uprising civil unrest, when multiple businesses and tourist attractions were damaged and some motorists were terrorized on the interstate. Other scenes in the commercial include firefighters, athletes, soldiers and average people helping others.

Footage from Charlotte included in the commercial is of a peaceful moment during the protests, when San Diego-based “peace activist” Ken Nwadike Jr. was seen offering hugs to police in riot gear. In the commercial, he’s seen embracing Officer Chris Frunzi in what has been described as the “hug heard around the world.”

His inclusion in the commercial has gotten widespread coverage, in part because Budweiser began pointing it out this week in Facebook posts.

That snapshot in time of Nwadike Jr. hugging a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officer on an uptown street is a sharp contrast to most scenes from the protests, which began after Keith Lamont Scott was killed by a CMPD officer on Sept. 20, 2016.

The night of Nwadike Jr.’s hug — Sept. 21, 2016 — is remembered in Charlotte as the night Justin Carr was killed. Carr, 26, had joined protests that night because he wanted to join a rally for justice, his family has said.

During the protests, activists called for CMPD Chief Kerr Putney to resign and demanded city leaders make major reforms to policing in Charlotte. Community leaders also said the civil unrest was caused not only by one instance of a deadly police shooting but also by a history of mistrust between law enforcement and people of color in Charlotte.

Charlotte City Council member Braxton Winston was also a participant in the protests, and he told WCNC this week the commercial is “in bad taste.” He became indelibly connected to the protests after a photo of him confronting police with a raised fist was shared by media outlets across the nation.

“They’re using that commercial to sell beer on the highest exposure night of the year in the Super Bowl,” Winston told WCNC. “That is one of the American ways of doing things. Commercializing struggle.”

A Budweiser spokesman, though, contends the greater context of Nwadike Jr. at the protest scene was not the motivation to include Charlotte in the new commercial.

The intent of the commercial “was not to trivialize anybody’s actions” but to depict scenes “that really show the American spirit” and, as in Nwadike’s case in Charlotte, “a moment of bravery,” said Eddie Moye, communications director for Budweiser, told The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday.

The setting for each scene in the commercial was irrelevant to why it was selected, Moye said, adding that individual actions are what is trying to be conveyed in the ad.

During the segment in which Nwadike hugs the officer, the narrator says in a soft voice laden with intended irony: “Yelling and screaming, just look at them, thinking they can save the world. Typical Americans always celebrating with their typical American beer.”

Others have joined Winston in criticizing the ad, one noting with sarcasm it sends the message “Give a hug, earn a chug.”

“These were riots with hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage done,” posted Jim Rochford on WCNC’s Facebook page.

“Personally I feel this is not okay. Stirs a lot of painful emotions in an already high charged emotional time right now,” Beth Deskevich wrote.

“I think it would be great if it was in a different scenario. Showing a man offering free hugs and then hugging a policeman. However, in this context, during a protest, I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Sandy Finn said.

Nwadike told KSWB-TV this week that he sees his inclusion in the commercial in a positive light, given its theme of incorporating “typical Americans.”

“That’s a message that we really need right now,” Nwadike told KSWB-TV. “What if we just did more good things for one another?”

This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Budweiser slammed for using Charlotte 2016 protest footage in Super Bowl beer commercial."