Denmark: Tourism Ad Pulled Over Promiscuity Charges (VIDEO)

COPENHAGEN (AP) -- Denmark's tourism agency has removed an advertisement from YouTube after complaints that it promoted promiscuity in the liberal Scandinavian country.

The video clip, nearly 3 minutes long, shows a young, blond woman cradling a dark-skinned infant called "August" and saying he is the result of a brief fling with a foreign tourist.

Speaking English in the video, she says she is "trying to find August's father" through Google's YouTube site. Danish TV2 has clarified that the scene was staged and the woman is an actress.

Since being posted Thursday by VisitDenmark, the ad received more than 800,000 hits on YouTube. VisitDenmark removed the clip Monday, but it can be still viewed as it has been copied and posted elsewhere on the Internet.

Sociologist Karen Sjoerup said the ad suggested "you can lure fast, blonde Danish women home without a condom."

Economy Minister Lene Espersen said the video presented "a not very well-thought-out picture of the country." Espersen also holds the government's tourism portfolio.

"I regret that the film has offended so many people," VisitDenmark manager Dorte Kiilerich said, explaining that intent had been to tell "a nice and sweet story about a grown-up woman who lives in a free society and accepts the consequences of her actions."

Watch the video below. Caution: Some find it offensive:

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Comments

[ETSpoon]

09:03 AM on 09/18/2009

The only reason the above "commercial" is offensive is that it is boring. *yawn*

[gbrooks]

08:34 AM on 09/18/2009

"The video clip, nearly 3 minutes long, shows a young, blond woman cradling a dark-skinned infant called "August""

That's a dark-skinned infant? Huh?

[jiminy cricket]

03:31 PM on 09/17/2009

I can't believe I'm writing such a shallow comment, but since I'm not really qualified to know and therefore comment on the topic that is producing such controversy, I am compelled to say that.... this woman is really, really pretty and the baby is beautiful.

[FrTown]

12:29 PM on 09/17/2009

I'll take the baby if he is too dark for Denmark.

[TimDanMick]

10:59 AM on 09/17/2009

It's a very sweet story and well acted. A little vignette which between the lines conveys more about Denmark than the standard scenery shots.

[JanetReno]

01:56 AM on 09/17/2009

Talk about whoring your country's women. WOW what a silly ad.

[Hank007]

01:23 AM on 09/17/2009

If that baby's dark skinned, you can call me Tupac.

[eden4barack08]

01:33 AM on 09/18/2009

Lmao!! I was thinking the same thing (sans the Tupac), how is that baby dark?

[blueskybigstar]

12:15 AM on 09/17/2009

Jeg plejer at bor i Danmanrk og den der en ting virkeligt sjovt.

I used to live in Denmark and that one there is really funny.

[SlithyTove]

10:50 PM on 09/16/2009

I've spent a great deal of time in Denmark, enough to be functional in Danish. Hygge has a uniquely Danish (well, the word was originally Norwegian, and there is a Swedish equivalent, fika) cultural connotation, but it typically is confined to family and very close friends -- a sort of "cozy warmth", as it were, and always in the context of "home".

The idea of extending it into a slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am context is largely poetic license on the part of the ad agency. Denmark makes some of the finest, best-crafted and most edgy commercials you can see anywhere...as far as you can get from the brash and brainless swill we are so often subjected to. This clip attests at least to that creativity. Good acting, interesting angle, and not worth all this fuss.

For those puzzled about the 'dark skin' reference, it's all relative...Slavs and Spaniards stick out like sore thumbs, and Berlusconi might well be kidded about his 'tan' in København the way he joked about Obama's.

[ForeverXL]

04:28 PM on 09/16/2009

Dark Skinned? That baby looks very white to me

[Louige Damion]

08:35 PM on 09/16/2009

Now what amazes me is that so many people (mostly from the USA) doesn't seem t grasp the whole nature of evolution. So it forces me to ask one fundamental question, WHAT is it that you and your children are taught in your educations within your schools? it seems to become more and more clear for many of us Europeans and Asians out here that this whole ridiculous idea of Creationism indeed is the only back drafting education being promoted over there still after the defeat of those contra productive Neo-Conservatives got booted out from the steering wheels of your Nation. Wake up, study and see facts for what they are and you will all learn that not all horses being black get black off-springs, some might end up white and some even spotted. funny huh? lol!

[Ivriniel]

11:04 PM on 09/16/2009

Huh?

Sorry, you seem to be confusing Genetics and Evolution there. Evolution involves the development new species by natural selection.

The colour of a horse would be determined by it's Genetic code.

[JonnyTruant]

03:51 AM on 09/17/2009

To be honest, I mostly agree with your assessment of American science lessons. However, while genetic variation is essential in natural selection, in the matter of one generation, genetic variation cannot, and should not, be compared to evolution.

From our perspective, that's not a dark-skinned child. However, I know how pale Scandinavians typically are, so I can understand how they might refer to the child as being dark-skinned. Like I said, it's a matter of perspective in this case. No need to go bonkers about someone not seeing things the same as you.

[Louige Damion]

08:36 PM on 09/16/2009

Wow, that shows how ignorant some people of certain countries are, I am half of mixed parents my mother being Swedish and my father being a Brazilian Native Indian/Afro/European. I look very much like a typical Red Indian though I have some resemblance to the Caucasian look, but as stated mostly Native Brazilian Indian look, long hair and very athletic body structure that comes with it. Both my daughter and my son have much of my body structure with lean yet athletic features, they both have pitch black and thick long hair as me, their father. their eyes are pitch black as well and their ways are infinitively strong with a huge belief in their own abilities and inner strength. Yet they have much lighter skin color then that of mine since their mother is German and half Hungarian.

[OmegaHunter]

04:13 AM on 09/17/2009

How was that comment ignorant at all?

Look at the baby in the video. Actually look at it. It's paler than the "mother" and yet is described as "dark skinned." Did you even read the article? Did you even look at the video? Did you even look at the still image of the video? That kid is, by no stretch of the imagination, "dark skinned" as the article puts it.

That baby has blond hair, blue (maybe green) eyes and pale skin. It seems to me the AP is exaggerating quite a bit to make the video seem more "offensive" than it really is.

"Promiscuity isn't enough, we need more. How about we say the kid has "dark skin" that'll make the ad agency seem racist too! That's definitely what this article needs."

The article makes no mention of race however. And I fail to see how you being mixed race and looking "Red Indian" (as you put it) has anything to do with this.

[eden4barack08]

01:44 AM on 09/18/2009

You're just a bit too sniffy huh?

[Buffington]

09:52 AM on 09/16/2009

She's putting her email with the video? Well, that should be productive.

[goddessNdiva]

09:04 AM on 09/16/2009

lol....this was a pretty bad tourism ad. All I got was that she has sex without protection and is friendly towards one night stands.

[minimalist syntax]

02:47 AM on 09/16/2009

Many Danes, Saami, and Basque have the same haplogroup. It is the rarest mitochondrial haplogroup in Europe, but perhaps not for long.

[jasev01]

01:07 AM on 09/16/2009

Annnnnd I'm booking my ticket right now. i love it Denmark. in fact it wasn't even on my radar but now it sounds pretty cool. But thats not a dark skin baby.

[llisa]

01:06 AM on 09/16/2009

Even if it was staged, this sort of thing actually does happen more than it should. I am sure there are quite a few people in the world whose parents never knew each others' names.

But, if it was staged--why? it's really not funny.