If you are a young Danish citizen, and were planning on skipping the upcoming European election and maybe having sex instead, think again.
“Voteman,” a dolphin-riding, mustachioed cartoon character, will pull you out mid-act and punch you through a glass window right into a polling station.
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That, at least, is what happens in a bizarre animated election ad released on Monday — and then promptly taken down — by the Danish Parliament, in an effort to get young voters to care about the May 25 election.
A wild guess? Threatening to decapitate them or stab them with the pointy stars of the EU flag is probably not gonna cut it. But that’s precisely what the video does.
“If you’re not gonna vote don’t try to run, don’t try to hide, because he will hunt you down,” the ad voiceover says in a perplexing combo of Johnny Bravo and Chuck Norris-inspired sequences. “He will find you, and he will make you vote.”
The ad tries to raise the point that voting has an impact on important, if unsexy, matters like climate regulation, agricultural subsidies, and chemicals in toys.
‘Parliament should be more careful with what we put our name to.’
It tries to tone down the violence by ending with the note that “no hipsters were harmed in the making of this film.” But the ad is not only violent, it is also flat-out sexist, as macho Voteman is first introduced while being pleasured by five moaning ladies wearing nothing but stockings and heels.
Predictably, Voteman didn’t last long, as Danish officials quickly removed the controversial ad from their YouTube channel. Yet, of course, the embarrassing screwup also stayed online long enough to go viral.
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Parliament should “be more careful with what we put our name to,” speaker Mogens Lykketoft said Tuesday, as reported by The Associated Press. Other parliamentarians said they had no prior knowledge of the ad.
Follow Alice Speri on Twitter: @alicesperi
Photo via Flickr
