Mount Assmore! This is truly one of the funniest ads (click here for closer look) I’ve seen in my 20 years in this fucked-up business. It’s for German website queer-travel.de, who for over 12 years, have made “gay and lesbian travel dreams come true…” according to the highly reliable Google translate function. This week, the Epica Awards, “Europe’s Premier Creative Awards,” announced that this cheeky execution had a won a silver in the press and poster category. I’m sorry, but it totally smokes the gold winner. I usually poo-poo this hackneyed ad visual technique of manipulating well-known landmarks (Rushmore has been abused many times), but this one is just so wonderfully bizarre, and apropos! So, to the Presidential asses! Teddy (second from right) has the roundest rump, but Abraham’s (far right) is the tightest tushy. Poor George (left) has the flattest … I wonder what the open-minded, DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act)-supporting South Dakotans (and the equable Bill O’Reilly!) would think of this sullying of their state treasure?
December 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
So, gays and lesbians only think about asses and sex? That’s why they travel? I don’t have anything else to say.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
@ Geek: As a Sociological Images junkie, I totally understand this type of concern, but I think this ad is too funny and bizarre not to be celebrated.
If this were an ad made by a fundamentalist Christian group to dissuade traditional American tourist spots from attracting gay travelers, it would have a totally different tone (funny enough, this ad could totally work for that kind of twisted campaign!). But as an ad made by a gay-friendly company for a gay audience, it totally works.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Well THAT is *certainly* the silliest thing I’ve seen today! Fantastic! Thanks for the giggles Copyranter.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Aaaaaahahahahaha. “ASSCUSE ME, BUTT…. COULD YOU PLEASE DIRECT ME TO THE REAR?”
I needed this today, thanks.
Geek, darling, lighten up. Whether you enjoy buttsecks regularly or not, this is comedy gold.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Monumental butt sex!!!
December 4th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
If those posteriors are supposed to represent the four presidents on Mount Rushmore, could they have at least used correct period clothing? :P
December 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Going back to another blog post here, that image was drawn by Don Martin for MAD Magazine. Admittedly, it’s an obvious joke and he may not have been the first, but he was certainly earlier than this ad.
Of course, the shoes were floppier…
December 4th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
thats pretty awesome…. majestic even.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I actually agree with Geek… :/
December 4th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I dunno… the presentation of the joke is too, um, “tongue-in-cheek” and self-aware for me to detect any real malice in it.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:36 am
The Germans, its ALWAYS the Germans. You want something bizarre or odd, you come to my people. Were a crazy bunch o mo-fos. ..with a really F’D up history too.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:03 am
cappy: I can tell you from experience that that was probably a heated, silly debate between creative director/account supervisor, client/agency: period or modern clothing? Part of the reason they went with modern was probably because of the Don Martin cartoon mentioned by Peter S. Also, because they wanted today’s men’s butts.
But hey, bravo to the client for not going with the usual “smiling couple on a beach” travel ad.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I like big butts and I can not lie!
December 5th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
“But as an ad made by a gay-friendly company for a gay audience, it totally works.”
Yeah, that’s mainly the problem. I can’t say I don’t see how and where it’s supposed to be funny, but that kind of atitude from gay people doesn’t really help, when most homophobes already think gays are just sexual deviant perverts with nothing else in mind.
It’s like, straight people like president faces, but gay people just wanna know about their asses.
Also, I don’t think that ad cares about the lesbian public!
December 5th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Geek, I don’t personally find the ad offensive, and I’m not sure why you’re getting upset on my behalf. (I’m ass… uming you’re not gay.)
If gays aren’t offended by it, why are you?
December 5th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
*wiping away a tear* God Bless America!
Can’t wait to see what they do with other national landmarks…actually what other landmarks are in need of such wonderful re-invention?
December 6th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Just got done with four years of grad school out in the Dakotas, so maybe I can answer your question for ya. The majority of South Dakotans you’ll meet probably won’t have any problems with this.
The ones I talked with about it are typically for civil unions, but want to keep religious marriage hetero only. I personally don’t think that’s going far enough for equality, but I guess I can logically understand the religious side of it remaining separate. Though I still think religion’s all a nice myth anyways, so what does it matter what you call your civil unions?
That being said, there is a very scary and disconcerting aspect to the American Plains in the form of religious sects. That’s where a majority of them are located, one of the most notorious South Dakota ones being convicted pedophile Warren Jeffs Mormon sect. The government is supposedly monitoring things, but the Plains are a very big place. It’s quite likely there’s Branch Davidian type crap going down out there in the more remote areas.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:12 am
“If gays aren’t offended by it, why are you?”
Well, at least one is.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I thought the Lincoln Tunnel was in NYC.
December 11th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
“what other landmarks are in need of such wonderful re-invention?”
The Washington Monument in DC would make a great giant phallus.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Ha ha Mount Assmore indeed.
Creativity at its best