I found this video last week and was just going to link to it but after Vanessa’s comment, I decided to delve deeper on the subject. V nailed it on the head calling the video “fried barf on a stick,” and then she pointed out several of the ways in which it’s backwards..ridiculously backwards:

Those actresses make light of the years that women labored to be perceived as equals among men. The new product was not equivalent of the Wii. It was substitute for second-class citizens with games that reinforced subservient behavior patterns

All I can say is I’m glad this commercial isn’t in English. It’s offensive enough visually. Putting the lame ass gender norms aside, I think the video employs humor in a really interesting way. The ad is clearly trying to be funny. We get this sense right off the bat with the portly dudes and their annoyed female companions. The viewer is supposed to identify with this scenario: the guys are trying to have fun and the gals kill their buzz. Whichever side you identify–or don’t identify–with, we can probably all agree that this is a culturally familiar narrative.

The Wii turns the guys into buffoons, but then we realize that the women too are subject to buffoonery as the Shii intoxicates them with an innate urge for all things domestic. The women go cra-zy! The men love it. We weren’t expecting this…it’s sooo FUNNY! Then, in the last moments the women start sucking mechanical dick. All hell breaks loose and it’s hard to not gasp–and let out a little chuckle– at the absurdity. I know European ads tend to be much more unbridled then those in America, but still, this is pretty risqué.

Humor is a powerful tool. That’s really my point. When we laugh, we let the feeling take us over and forget to think. Just for a little bit. Sometimes, this isn’t such a big deal. But, a lot of the time, humor is an artificial treatment we coat over a more serious topic that we’d rather not deal with. Political jokes, racist jokes, anti queer jokes, blond jokes, Jew jokes, dead baby jokes.

It’s troubling to see commercials like this because they invite viewers to laugh off thousands of years of systemic subjugation as if “we’re so over it.” With all of the keeled over laughing, the danger is you’ll forget to think.

Visit Denmark for its castles, Viking heritage, the Tivoli garden, Legoland, its offensive cartoons about Muslims and…its loose women.  I probably had you until the last one, but it’s true:  A Danish tourism agency is officially promoting the country with claims of sexy, blond single women who will have unprotected sex with you. If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself.

0xKaren26 – Karen in Denmark seeking August\’s father – (2009) (Denmark)‘ >div>

But watch out! When you take off the next morning without leaving your phone number and apparently your name, you’ll have no way of knowing if you knocked her up. Even so, you won’t have to worry because over a year later she’ll contact you with your adorable infant son sucking down a bottle in her arms. Email her, if you want, but she’s not asking anything of you. Karen, the beautiful blond, makes it clear that she’s no bimbo and she’s certainly no ho.

For any one who might actually believe Karen’s story, please, don’t be fooled. As it turns out, Karen is an actress who’s appeared here and here in other commercials.

Karen’s home video confessional went bananas on the net. “It is the most successful viral advertising ever. We have cut through the media clutter. It has cost us the same as a 30 second commercial, aired a few times on TV2” according to Peter Helstrup from the advertising agency that created the campaign.

When asked why the they decided on this promotion route, the CEO of VisitDenmark said the video was “good exposure for Danish self-sufficient and dignified women.”

The Karen video caught a second wind this week after the story went viral in Denmark several months ago. U.S. readers had a field day with comments. Person favorites include: “I wonder if she wants more kids?,” “THIS is why the TSA is trying to keep us from flying!” and “Why isn’t she breastfeeding? It is very irresponsible of them to promote formula.”

If not “come to our country, knock up our women and then leave,” then what is the Danish tourist board’s implication? Maybe their justification is that the economy has gone to shit so it’s time to pimp out their women for the sake of the homeland. Or perhaps something is culturally lost in translation.  As adland.tv’s “Dabitch” puts so well, “Come to in Denmark.”