Scary AIDS Campaign Showing Hitler Getting His

Hitler is making a comeback of sorts. Quentin Tarantino for one, brings the German tyrant back to life in his war fantasy film Inglourious Basterds in an effort to close the casket on the mustachioed prince of darkness once and for all. His attempt is made with gusto, as he portrays Hitler as a melodramatic ninny and gives him a death of equal flourish. Hitler is chopped down by a trigger giddy Eli Roth on a theatre balcony during the fictional premiere of Goebbel’s film A Nation’s Pride, his carcass desecrated as we are given a close up of his face being quite literally shot off. The sheer violence is comedic in its proportion as Hitler’s face is loosened from his skull by a hailstorm of bullets. An image like that is a stick of dynamite of an exclamation point, pure TNT attempting to lay an obliterated Hitler to peace (piece[s]). However, Hitler, like zombies, vampires, and T-1000, has proven to be resilient in death and has already made his return, but this time killing his victims through unprotected sex.

In a new AIDS campaign developed by German based company das comitee, Hitler is depicted having unprotected sex with a very attractive woman under the tagline “AIDS is a mass-murderer”. They’ve even released a commercial, that while extremely graphic, unfortunately does not star Paris Hilton. Luckily the ad makers spared most of us and did not go the route of cinema verite’ instead opting to employ the high production values that usually accompany ads for beer or phones with touch features: we get to see a female brick house of a model throwdown with a diesel’d Adolf Hitler in a high rise condo. In fact the TV spot plays out like a typical condom commercial; the stylish setting, the high paced editing, the low lighting, the incredibly charged sexual content. But instead of a catchy punchline about upping your partners pleasure or your own due to an increased sensitivity offered by a new ultra-thin latex, we are thrust with a close-up of a grimacing Hitler climaxing. Pretty grotesque stuff, unless of course you have a thing for watching evil men climax.

The advert itself is pretty insensitive as it demonizes men that do have AIDS; equating the disease with Hitler will do that. As a result most mainstream AIDS charities have distanced themselves from the ad campaign citing that it acts to stigmatize an already oppressed class of individuals. In their view the commercial will only make life more difficult for those suffering from the disease. Furthermore, the ad doesn’t offer any advice on battling HIV or preventing it as the actual topic of unprotected sex is entirely inferred by the audience (there are no penetration shots).

But as a piece of shock-advertising the Hitler campaign has certainly succeeded. It may be crude, it may be crass, it is insensitive but it might be enough to scare people to wrap it up before taking it to go. It has also put AIDS back in the public consciousness, back in the blogosphere as a topic of discussion. And for das comitee this is a mission accomplished. According to the campaign website "The campaign is designed to shake people up, to bring the topic of Aids back to centre stage, and to reverse the trend of unprotected sexual intercourse. Because anyone can become infected,". Well, thanks das comitee, for showing me Hitler in coitus, for shaking me up. I don’t think I’ll ever get AIDS because I’m not going to have sex ever again.