Kids and embarrassingly immature adults will often still use “gay” as a blanket insult, and that’s essentially the joke — if you can even call it that — behind a new Russian voting advertisement of unknown origins.
Here’s the setup: Two admittedly very fine Russian men walk and talk, stop for a pee, ride the bus, and then head back to one of their apartments to make sweet, sweet love.
You know what they don’t do? Vote. Because not voting is so gay.
“The message in this video, that if you do not go to the polls, then you are gay. How childish is that?” asked one commenter.
How about we take this to the next level?
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The Russian LGBT Network’s chair, Mikhail Tumasov, said he wasn’t particularly surprised at the juvenile spot.
“I regard this video as a new wave of using LGBTIQ people as some kind of antisocial irresponsible people, which once again shows the need to repeal the law of 2013, a similar practice at this level is the result of incendiary hatred of people under the ‘plausible’ context,” he told Gay Star News.
And as immature, insulting and bizarre as it is, the last scene does have a certain aesthetic appeal…
Watch below:
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Posted by ?????????? ???????? on Tuesday, August 7, 2018
truckproductions
wow really? you think there’s something “appealing” about this? Are you so far removed from the terror of living in a homophobic state that you find this funny? Disgusting
mujerado
The word “appealing,” which you’ve put in quotes, doesn’t appear anywhere in this article. Neither does “funny.” What you find “disgusting” isn’t even there!
TheGregoryProject
@mujerado you may want to read the article again.
WMLA04
Just by exposing this video, these beautiful young men are in danger of attacks, beatings and possible death. This is life (and death) in Russia!
mujerado
I’m pretty sure anyone seeing this in Russia is aware they’re just acting for the commercial. Anyone who’s prone to homophobia will take it out on real guys on the street, just like they do here in the good ol’ U.S.A., not on two commercial actors.
m2a1
Many people in Russia understand that this video is fake and these actors are just actors and not real gays. It’s just a political agenda.
roth99
I think this vid shows how twisted things can become when we use minorities to hate or dislike of political or social gain. As we know there is no reason to discriminate against the gay community, thus the homophobes need to continually dream up other situations where one can feel superior and justify their prejudice.
Sam6969
“[…]where one can feel superior and justify their prejudice.”
So true and I would add: “and define what is ‘normal’ to feel secure”.
Doug
This has got to be the dumbest premise for a political ad I’ve ever seen.
ElPillo
Indeed a stupid premise. Sadly, equal in quality as Trump’s for many things. Maybe they discuss strategy every time the communicate.
Terrycloth
Watch your adjectives…hot…um..no.
Kieran
That last scene would never get past the censors in the US. Much too suggestive and homoerotic for an American audience. And no obvious gay stereotypes! Two masculine studs! Nope, this would never fly in the US.
Bob Scardino
I’m glad to see older TBW models getting work in PSAs, even if there is no PDA.
billyd10
Anymore I find Russians to be pigs. I do not find these men to be attractive at all. Their life looks really grim.
Sam6969
I do not understand what they say in Russian, but this ad seems particularly bizarre because it is cognitive dissonance-inducing for LGBT and friends. On the one hand, we see a hot same-sex couple behaving normally, but on the other hand it is meant to look wrong, inappropriate, irresponsible and probably also shameful. There is such a gap between our ethics, conceptions of “normal” and theirs. We already knew it, but it is so casually illustrated with this political ad that it is strikingly clear.
Josh and Cody
And this is news *how* ?
Kieran
Because you clicked on for one thing.
tjack47
I am not ashamed to admit that this is all confusing. I wish I could translate it, but my Russian instructor family is not available. I try not to allow the words “gay” or “faggot” offend me. Words have power over me only if I allow it. I see the problem here as having no way of knowing how it was perceived in Russia. I do believe there are vulnerable people who are easily indoctrinated by this sort of propaganda.
brianlange
Try anything that may work!
ingyaom
Who gets f*¢k?d with his underpants on?
Kieran
He’s obviously waiting for them them to be pulled down.
o.codone
I love how the top slammed the door. OMG.
Greg
Bizarre ad. Russia is very bizarre. Putin uses the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church uses Putin. The modus operandi for both is a traditionalist moral agenda–not that they care that much about everything that our U.S. conservatives care about, like abortion. Russia has very liberal abortion laws (if any) and their abortion rate is TWICE that of the U.S. But they seem to be apoplexed by the the whole homosexual thing. They can’t have THAT going on! Sodom and Gomorrah! Society disintegrating! Men turning into women! I would just say that if they’re having too many babies (as indicated by the abortion rate), men pairing up would help solve some of that. Maybe they haven’t thought about that. Oh and remember when they hosted the Sochi Olympics and Russian officials were complaining that wrestling was “gay”? (well, it APPEALS to many gay men). Well, anyway, this ad (I think) is visually hot, apart from the sinister message; and the irony is they’re turning on the gay with a lot of men who watch it.
nitejonboy
Yum, I’d like to not vote with them.
tham
Russia looks like a sh*thole…
ShowMeGuy
Actually, the ad is brilliant. It even got a bunch of us queers from all over the world who are not eligible to vote in a Russian election to spend time talking about it.