South Korea
Women turn into cows: Dairy company apologizes for controversial commercial
In the controversial commercial, a group of women turns into cows when they are discovered by a man with a camera (symbolic picture)
© Sina Schuldt / DPA
In a South Korean commercial, women transform into grazing cows in a pasture. What sounds absurd has reportedly sparked a nationwide debate on sexism and voyeurism.
The South Korean dairy giant Seoul Milk’s commercial sparked a nationwide debate about sexism, according to media reports. In the video, a man secretly observes a group of women in a meadow who, when they see him, turn into cows. The company has since apologized, but the criticism has not subsided.
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The commercial begins with a man walking through a forest with a camera. A spokesman said: “We have finally managed to capture them with the camera in a place of immaculate cleanliness.” In the next scene the man hides in a bush and films a group of women dressed in white who drink from a stream and do yoga in a pasture. When the man steps on a branch, the women are startled – and turn into cows. The clip ends with the words: “Clean water, organic feed, 100 percent pure Seoul milk. Organic milk from an organic ranch in the beautiful nature of Cheongyang”.
Marketing agency and performers fined
The British BBC reports that women taking on the role of livestock have drawn harsh criticism across the country. In response, Seoul Milk removed the video that had been uploaded on November 29 from YouTube – but users quickly put it online again.
The Seoul Dairy Cooperative, according to the “Korea Herald” the largest milk producer in the country, finally apologized in an online statement. “We take this matter with a heavy heart and will review it internally and take special care to prevent similar incidents in the future,” said the company, according to the Korea Herald.
The head of marketing at Seoul Milk and the models who participated in the shoot were fined for profanity, according to the BBC. According to the Korea Herald, an official from the Seoul Dairy Cooperative said that the majority of the eight people shown were men, not women.
Critics accuse Seoul Milk of illegal “Molka” practice
But the criticism is not limited to the portrayal of women. Viewers have compared the secret filming of the man with the illegal practice of “Molka”. The term is made up of the English words “mole” (mole) and “camera”. The fact that men spy on women and take them in has become a serious problem in South Korea in recent years.
According to the BBC, this is not the first time Seoul Milk has made negative headlines. In 2003, the dairy company staged a performance in which naked models sprayed each other with yogurt.
sources: Seoul Milk commercial; “BBC“;”Korea Herald“