S. Korean garlic video ad roasted over purported obscenity

By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A rural South Korean town is getting roasted over its video ad on garlic that some farmers say stinks of obscenity and has even sexually objectified the agricultural product. The controversy surrounds a 30-second video that had been posted on a YouTube channel for Hongseong County for about two years. The video shows a woman touching the thigh of a man with a full garlic head mask and saying words like “very thick” and “hard” to apparently describe the quality of the town’s local garlic. Some farmers’ groups have asked Hongseong to apologize and punish those responsible for the spicy video, which began to start being noticed when it was aired on electronic billboards at a Seoul express bus terminal. The video was withdrawn.