Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky face backlash because of new commercial for United Arab Emirates. Photo / Getty Images
Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky face backlash because of new commercial for United Arab Emirates. Photo / Getty Images
A celebrity couple leading a tourism campaign for one of the UAE’s largest cities has triggered a fierce backlash online.
Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky have fronted an extravagant new ad campaign touting Abu Dhabi as a tourism destination for families, but the move has backfired among their fanbase.
In the minute-long advertisement, posted to their Instagram accounts today, the 41-year-old Australian actor and his Spanish model wife, 48, can be seen having an intense day on set of a fake action movie. While both dangling from the side of a building between takes, the duo muse they could “use a vacation about now”.
The campaign then cuts to footage of Hemsworth and Pataky, along with their three young children, enjoying various tourist attractions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital, including open-top car rides in the desert, surfing, relaxing massages and trips to the city’s National Aquarium and theme park.
The video was also shared to the official tourism account for Abu Dhabi, which within just hours attracted thousands of comments from concerned fans questioning why Hemsworth, who has an estimated net worth of AU$225 million ($248m), would opt to promote a tourist destination that is notorious for restricted human rights.
“A country without women’s rights and workers’ rights. An amazing thing to promote with your huge celebrity,” a fourth added.
Indeed, the UAE, one of the top 10 wealthiest countries in the world, has a chequered history when it comes to human rights, with archaic laws inhibiting women’s rights, restricted freedom of speech and the continued criminalisation of homosexuality.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), the international non-governmental organisation, asserts the UAE “invests in a strategy to paint the country as progressive, tolerant, and rights-respecting while carrying out its zero-tolerance policy toward dissent”.
The Marvel star has also fronted several tourism campaigns for his home country of Australia, where he lives in Byron Bay with his family.
UAE has faced a lot of issues on human rights, women and LGBTQ+ violence, and climate change. Photo / Getty Images
A representative for Hemsworth has been contacted for comment.
Last year, fellow Australian Rebel Wilson earned the ire of supporters after flaunting her lavish holiday in Dubai alongside her now-wife Ramona Agruma, just six months after coming out.
In January, Wilson attended the launch of the new Atlantis The Royal resort, where Beyonce was reportedly paid around AU$34 million ($38m) to perform a private set.
Many followers were quick to criticise Wilson, 44, for promoting Dubai given members of the LGBT weren’t treated equally in the region.
“Aren’t you a member of LGBTQ+ community? The hypocrisy of it all,” wrote one at the time.
“Human rights? LGBT? Unfollowing now,” said another.
Rebel Wilson attends the Grand Reveal Weekend for Atlantis The Royal, Dubai's new ultra-luxury hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Photo / Getty Images
“Uhm, they kill our kind over there. Why are you promoting this?” another outraged fan wrote.
Others were even more scathing.
“A nice free trip, to a place that you can’t be gay in. I had friends who were homosexual in Dubai, they had to get a two-bedroom apartment just in case the authorities knocked on their door,” one person wrote.
“Oh, the privilege. What about other LGBT people?” wrote another follower.
Hemsworth and Wilson are not isolated examples of celebrities being lured by lucrative offers in the Middle East.
Speaking about it with The Telegraph a year later, Beckham argued, “I do a lot of research into partners that I’m going into business with. And I wanted to be involved in another world cup. I like to see the game grow, and that means it going into territories it hasn’t been in before.”
Advertisement board featuring Qatar Ambassador David Beckham during the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022. Photo / Getty Images
He continued, “I knew there’d be questions, I knew there was going to be criticism, but I’ve always been a believer that football is such a powerful tool. I knew that once the world cup started, not that it would go away, but it was all then about how people were treated, how people weren’t excluded, what an experience the world cup would be.
“I spent a month out there, and not one person came up to me and said, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been treated like this, oh my God, I wasn’t allowed into this place …’ I was around the LGBTQ community, I spoke to people on the ground. So I was happy with my decision.”
