After 6 years we finally have it, we finally have an apology for that cursed Wiggles song about pappadums.
As previously mentioned, ‘The Pappadum Song’ that featured in a 2014 episode of Ready, Steady, Wiggle! resurfaced on Twitter yesterday for being being um, you know? Racist.
to be clear, this was not the representation i wanted pic.twitter.com/vNswTi0E16
— Ashmi (@_ashmip) October 22, 2020
In the video, The Wiggles are dressed in traditional Indian dress (kurtas and saris) and dance to The Pappadum song alongside a woman whose smiling, but whose eyes are lifeless and cold.
It seems like every year someone on the internet brings the song back from the dead and the fury begins all over again. However, we’ve actually never received an apology for the song yet, but today is the day we finally got one from the big daddy Wiggle himself, Anthony Field.
“I wrote the song, and directed the clip in 2014 (which was meant as a celebration),” he wrote on Twitter.
“It was not my intention to be culturally insensitive to the Indian community, or to add value to ethnic stereotyping.
“Apologies.”
I think the funniest part of the whole apology was the white people in the comments accepting his apology like it was theirs to accept.
Anthony, I don’t see any reason to apologize. People just get worked up over everything nowadays and find any little reason to get offended by something. Love u Anto
— Justin (@JustinTehReker) October 22, 2020
I can’t speak for all South Asians, but I can say that it personally feels nice to finally get an apology from The Wiggles. It shows that we’ve come a long way since 2014, when casual racism was a lot more prevalent in Australian culture and society.
I don’t think that The Wiggles meant any harm by the original song and the most important thing is they acknowledged their mistake. There is no need to cancel The Wiggles, ok?
But you know what we can’t forgive? When you replaced Greg Page with bloody Sam Moran as the yellow Wiggle.
Never forget.
