I know AIDS is deadly, but this may be taking it a bit too far ...

In an odd new spin on the old ad Hitlerum argument, a German AIDS-awareness campaign launched an advert that ruffled more than a few feathers – see if you can guess why? (NSFW for moderate sexual content.)

The provocative commercial, which ends with the tag-line "AIDS is a mass murder", aims to scare young people into using condoms by associating the deadly disease with the German dictator.

In the highly-sexualised clip which can only be shown after the watershed, a couple undress and begin to make love in a dimly-lit bedroom.

But what appears to be a typical, if steamy, advert for perfume or underwear takes a macabre twist when the camera pans to man's face at the moment of climax - revealing him to be Adolf Hitler.

While I understand what they were trying to do and agree with their basic goal of scaring people into using condoms (frankly, I don't care how you get people to use them, as long as they use them), they really went the wrong way with this commercial – horribly wrong. First, they went and made an R-rated commercial which will never play on daytime TV, only visible after nightfall, which has the effect of reducing its potential viewership – ie. youths who would be best suited to be influenced into using condoms would likely never see it. (Though admittedly, they probably will now that it's exploded on the Net.)

Second, it's clear that the advert had the intention of spreading the message that AIDS itself is a mass-murderer (can't disagree so far), but the way they did it by showing the sexual partner himself as Hitler, they pretty much compared anyone with AIDS to Hitler and a mass-murderer. I'm not sure many AIDS-stricken people will appreciate being equated to one of the cruelest and most bloodthirsty monsters in modern history.

The basic concept of the commercial itself is interesting, and it could've worked had it been carried out right, but as it is, it's the product of a horrible miscalculation on the part of its makers.

(via The Daily Grail)