Britain’s Conservative Party was going to reach gay voters by televising ads showing two dudes in the shower, but David Cameron’s camp scrapped the expensive idea at the last minute.
Estimated to cost somewhere between £100,000-500,000, the spots showed one with two “naked men grappling in a shower, while another [ad] depicts a teenager being caught reading what at first appears to be a top shelf magazine. The third unshown ad makes light of teenage sex, portraying a girl confessing to her parents: ‘I am three months Conservative.'”
The Sunday Times says the ads were dropped over backlash fears. (Well, yeah.) An unidentified party source told the paper, “The ads are all very clever and much more imaginative and funnier than anything that they put out during the election campaign. They were designed to appeal to voters who would not have thought of backing the Tories in the past. However, the risk with these ads was that they might have alienated more traditional core supporters.”
Should’ve hired the Old Spice guy. Just sayin’.
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Jack
What a perfect metaphor for the Tories: recognising the needs of gay voters, but refusing to act on it for fear of bringing about any change which might upset their bigoted core supporters.
Hilarious
I’m more offended that the idea of reaching gay voters had to come from what looks like a sex scene rather than 2 boyfriends out on a normal date or *gasp* living life like maybe a kiss at the door on the way to work.
I can only imagine what their meeting was like when they came up with this. I know gay porn is what gets my vote.
Phil
If it were me, I’d choose the gay porn commercial over the sweet gay commercial. I mean, yea, it’s nice to get positive, hetero-normative publicity for our “lifestyle”, but I really like porn. Besides, I’m not going to be conservative until well into my fourties. (Then it’ll be the new young generation waiting for me to die off with my bigoted views!)
j
@Phil: Why the negative response to this? Have a sense of humor people, if only just a sense.
jason
I personally find it offensive that anybody would seek to portray the male homosexual orientation as a shower/sauna/truck stop sex paradigm. It’s hugely offensive. The orientation is a pure thing, and should never be sullied by notions of promiscuity.
Keep the promiscuity notion out of the gay rights cause. If you want to be promiscuous, do it on your own terms and not under the gay rights umbrella.
Tallskin
When the US Republican or Democrat Party has a similar ad I will think the USA has finally joined the civilised western world, until then it can sit with the homophobic muslim and africa countries.