Outrage in South Korea over commercial that 'sexually objectified' garlic

A commercial in South Korea promoting a regional Hongsan garlic variety sparked outrage - because it was too horny.

Instead of doing the traditional route of a family or famers chopping up some garlic to add to a savoury dish, Hongseong took a different approach.

A.V. Club reported that it made a commercial about a woman who wants to have sexual relations with a garlic-humanoid bulb.

Now, with the commercial’s notoriety that stemmed from an extended marketing campaign, the farmers in South Korea have joined forces to decry the commercial and have it taken off of YouTube and Billboards.

Watch the video here for yourself if you dare.

Reid McCarter, the story’s author, took to Twitter to share the story.

“Wrote about some hot garlic,” his caption read.

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Soon after, people took to social media to express their feelings and poke fun at the commercial.

“Garlic SHOULD be sexually objectified imo,” another joked.

“Now that’s a story,” another added.

Someone else joined in and wrote: “Finally, some meaningful social change.”

The Associate Press published got a translation and summarized the ad’s dialog.

They explained that it’s a parody of 2004 movie Once Upon A Time In High School where a woman who is garlic-infatuated describes her aromatic lover—and Hongsan garlic itself—as “hard” and “very thick.”

When the commercial aired on video billboards in Seoul and Daejon, the moment of a woman who is head over heals over a guy with a garlic bulb for a head caused an uproar from influential national farmer organizations.

The Korean Peasants League and the Korean Women Peasants Association, provided a statement that requested punishments for the creators behind the ad, “steps on how to prevent similar incidents” and an apology.

“We can’t repress our astonishment. The video offended the people who watched it and dealt a big blow to the image of the agricultural product that farmers have laboriously grown,”the statement said.

Elsewhere, the AP also noted that the organisations called the commercial “suggestive” and “inappropriate.”

As a result, Hongseong officials said they’ve withdrawn the video from their YouTube channel and stopped airing the commercial on billboards last week.

The county so far hasn’t provided any official statement on the issue. Officials also said they are in talks about how to respond to the farmers’ requests.

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