Danish Government Yanks Own Video Over Sex, Violence

It's a cartoon video made by the government designed to encourage young people to vote. Probably cheesy or hokey, you'd think? Try laden with sex (of the group variety, no less), violence (including a decapitation), and cartoon nudity. Meet "Voteman," a concoction of the Danish government. Parliament posted the 90-second video on its YouTube channel Monday, hoping it would get the attention of young adults and remind them to vote in the May 25 European elections, reports the Copenhagen Post. After a barrage of complaints, however, it pulled the video the very next day.

Here's the Financial Times describing it:

• Voteman is a "a muscleman first seen in bed with five naked women who then proceeds to beat up young people to force them to vote. He then decapitates one man, interrupting a couple having sex to throw them and their bed out of a window, and using his dolphin to help him chuck people into voting booths."

Yup. At the Guardian, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett thinks the worst offense isn't so much the graphic imagery as "the lameness of the entire endeavour." It talks down to young voters and proves once again that "politicians just don't have a clue about young people." (More strange stuff stories.)