By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A rural South Korean town has come under fire for a video ad about garlic that some farmers say has an obscene smell and even sexually objectified the produce.
The controversy revolved around a 30-second video that had been posted on Hongcheng County’s YouTube channel for about two years.
The video shows a woman touching the thigh of a man named “Red San”, wearing a full garlic hood, and uttering words such as “very thick” and “hard” to describe the quality of the local garlic. It’s also a parody of a famous scene from the 2004 hit Korean film Once Upon a Time in High School.
The ad reportedly generated about 190,000 views, mostly underground, but it started to take root among the general public when it was broadcast on electronic billboards at Seoul Express Bus Terminal and downtown streets in Daejeon. July before garlic hits the market.
A farmer who saw the video notified some farmer groups, and the Korean media began to report on it, leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths.
“We cannot contain our surprise,” said a joint statement issued by the local branches of the Korea Farmers’ Union and the Korea Women’s Farmers Association, two major farmers’ organizations. “The video offended viewers and dealt a major blow to the image of farmers’ painstakingly grown produce.”
The statement called the video “suggestive” and “inappropriate,” saying it “sexually objectifies garlic.”
Farmer groups demanded an apology from Hongcheng, penalties for the person in charge of the video production and measures on how to prevent similar incidents. Shin Ji-yoon, an official with the Korea Women’s Farmers Association, said the farmers’ group asked Hongcheng to respond to their demands by Aug. 10.
Hongseong officials said they had pulled the video from its YouTube channel and stopped showing it on billboards. The county has not made any official statement on the issue, and officials said they are discussing how to respond to farmers’ demands.
County officials said they officially changed the name of the local garlic to “Hongcheng” in January.
Many Koreans believe that garlic is one of the essential ingredients in Korean cooking to boost physical strength. Some believe it can also improve male sexual function.
At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the country’s women’s curling team earned the nickname “Garlic Girls” — four of the team’s five members are from another rural town known for its garlic — because They have a fairy tale run to win the silver medal.
