It’s still far too early in the 2010 general election season to say which party is winning the contest for the most bizarre campaign poster. But my current favorite has got to be the above offering from the MDF, a giant version of which is now greeting me every morning on my local metro platform. While the folks over at the addict blog have already had a bit of fun with the jarring image and similar ones featuring hip young boys, comparing them to Benetton ads (calling them the “United Colors of MDF”), this particular poster actually reminded me of something different: The 2004 Hollywood teen comedy “Mean Girls.” (My own mash-up is below.)
If you didn’t see the film, it’s about an earnest and intelligent high school girl’s battle with a clique of phony and domineering über-bitches called the “plastics,” which is probably how MDF actually sees itself vis-à-vis their current competition. On the other hand, the MDF is the only party out there that has made saying “no” to most voters’ desire for government largess the centerpiece of its platform, so maybe they want to be perceived as mean but hot. Either way, weird.
Question is, is it working? Are they drawing attention to
themselves with these ads? So, the next set of ads should include
hot women and beer.
I am proven mistaken!! MDF does have woman ads after all… when will they implement both a man and a woman in a ad then?
@ Attila;
I would hardly consider these young girls “women”. And where do you see a “woman ads”? All I see is a poster, targeting young males who appreciate Gap or Abercrombie and Finch clothing.
I’m actually surprised that a political party would all their name attached to such provocative poster.
@justasking
The last MDF poster featured an all male cast, and i was wondering if they showed any females ones. So when this ad came out , i considered it “a woman/girl ads” since its an all woman/girl cast. Ofcourse its more likely to target men/boys but i doubt it will urge them to vote for them, i mean its not like they would vote for them after just seeing a single poster? They need more convincing then that…
I will admit that those were the only 2 posters i ever saw so i was just curious if the MDF only makes an all man/boy or woman/girl cast in their ads and why not one of each?
@ Attila,
I have to admit after seeing these posters featuring these young adults, the last thing on my mind was whether they would be coming out with anymore. As a matter of fact, I just sat here wondering what kind of message MDF was trying to convey. I still have not figured it out, care to help me with that one?
I actually went onto MDF website a while back to see what they were about. I honestly have to admit that what they were “saying” and what they are “portraying”, completely at odds what this Party is supposed to stand for. I’m obviously missing something.
@justasking
I would appreciate it if you could please send me the link to their site.I tried to look on wiki since (i have no idea what the MDF website is)and it had next to no information on the party??? I mean other than it said it was: “The Hungarian Democratic Forum (Hungarian: Magyar Demokrata Fórum), or MDF, is a Center-right, Liberal Conservative, and Christian Democratic, political party in Hungary, led by Dávid Ibolya.” you would expect more?
Jobbik got a alot of love from wiki since you can see a packed page on info after info on them. Maybe its because they made an effort to explain what they all about and MDF is just there for the religious people who want a priest/leader as their spokesperson. I guess only MDF knows what MDF really stands for?
@ Attila;
The official website to MDF is mdf.hu. It’s in Hungarian.
I just went there a few mins ago and realized that the kids on their posters are in fact MDF members.
So there ya go, that’s what they were trying to portray and failed miserably, that they have a hip new party that all the University students are joining.
@Attila: If you look in English for things then you are on a losing streak already. Jobbik put a lot of effort to writing in English for people like Law, Ricsi and Mark who can’t speak the language or understand the news. Further, the Hungarian version of Wikipedai has plenty on MDF.
@ Vandorlo
. There are a few older people there but i bet thats their parents 
… A party shouldn’t have such young people in it, they should be part of the side party, like MDF-youth programme or something, until they are old enough to join the party’s top leadership. However if the 22 year old happens to be Alexander the Great then i suppose we can make an exception.
“Further, the Hungarian version of Wikipedai has plenty on MDF.” Thanks for clearing that up for me, i do suggest that they make an effort to implement English more strongly in their party. After all, its the one the most spoken languages in the world and they are losing support by not getting their message across properly. Im sure that there are non-speaking hungarian in hungary that can vote (or they cant speak it well). My hungarian isnt amazing but i do learn bit by bit, so thats why i tend to go to these sites for a better understanding.
@ justasking
I admit it does fail, i suppose their mouths are bigger than their brains and thats how they got in
@ Attila;
I don’t agree that these kids should not be allowed to be apart of MDF as members, if anything I think that it is great that at such a young age that they are paying attention to something other then partying, which is usually the case with some University students.
I don’t know about you, but when I was in University, the last thing on my mind was politics.
No, I think what I object to the most, is how these girls are being exploited and MDF is not even being subtle about their intent. And the sad thing is, I don’t even think these girls are even mature enough to even realize, that this in fact is what’s happening.
Yeah, like I’m going to run out and vote for a Political party like that. I’ll get right on that.
I would also be curious, in say 20 years, if these girls regret posing for these posters.
As for your interest in tackling Hungarian, good on you for that. You might also want to consider getting some Hungarian movies and watching those. That way you can hear how the words are properly pronounced.
I don’t know where you live, but it you want to get movies from Hungary, there are web sites that will help you unlock you DVD player and reprogram it, so that you can play movies from all regions.
“No, I think what I object to the most, is how these girls are being exploited and MDF is not even being subtle about their intent. And the sad thing is, I don’t even think these girls are even mature enough to even realize, that this in fact is what’s happening. ” Are you kidding me? There isn’t one political party here, even the troglodytes Jobbik, who couldn’t wrangle up 3 hot girls for a poster and they aren’t doing anything out of line with any political party found around the world. Are you trying to say that girls aren’t as smart as boy and can be easily manipulated into doing something they wouldn’t normally do…maybe we should take away their right to vote then. Of all the things young women in Budapest are going to regret in the future this will come close to last right after Rocco’s DP Extravaganza
Actually on shitambiance they always had a very nice looking girl making young ugly boys run to sign up to Magyar Garda
(I have a flash-problem with my Vista installation so I cannot fix the exact link to her nice face)
She will of course not regret being the MG-Poster girl (Page 3 on shitambiance) later in her life…
“Actually on shitambiance they always had a very nice looking girl making young ugly boys run to sign up to Magyar Garda”
hahahaha… So going by that logic, the boys must know where all the beautiful woman are then? Thanks for the tip, il ask them next time!!
@justasking
Thanks for the support, il do my best to master the language >:)… and i think most kids dont think about politics but yet i see that quite a few parties are trying to get them involved other than MDF, ‘youth league’ assocation and so on… i personally wouldnt join such things because its unwanted stress
@C’est Moi
Woman are beautiful,smart and special people. SO before you look me, i view men=woman concept even though it ends up men
Last bit was cut out….
@C’est Moi
Woman are beautiful,smart and special people. SO before you look grudgingly at me, i view men=woman concept even though it ends up men
I’ve got no problem with women getting involved in politics, but what is with the girl in the middle on the poster? A little too much salami maybe?
Get a life people, you all that bored? for fuck sake.
“Get a life” says the person who posts under the name ‘Bali cover up’. Hmm. what’s wrong with this picture?
You got to be kidding me?!??!
i view men=woman concept even though it ends up woman (greater than) men. Unless its a jealous woman then its woman (greater than)(greater than)(greater than)(greater than)(greater than) men, so us men can
never really win
Please work…
@ Cest Moi;
You miss understand me. I would find it inappropriate no matter who created and used these posters. This has absolutly nothing to do with Political parties per say. I comment on MDF because they are the ones with these posters.
I am all for utilizing what you’ve got and I am not so full of myself that I don’t realise/understand sex sells. That being said, the top poster to me, looks like an add for a porn movie, one that features College students and the bottom one reminds me of either a clothing or a beer add. The t-shirt on the chickiepoo in the centre, although she looks great in it, is not something that should be on a Political poster.
As for these girls being stupid, who said that they were? There is a big difference between being naive and being stupid.
Are you saying that some of the things you did in your 20′s you’d repeat say in your 40′s? I wouldn’t! Don’t get me wrong, I have no regrets per say; but, some of the things I’ve done in the past when I was younger, I wished I would have thought out a little more. That’s all I’ m saying.
sex sells. That being said, the top poster to me, looks like an add for a porn movie, one that features College students and the bottom one reminds me of either a clothing or a beer add. The t-shirt on the chickiepoo in the centre, although she looks great in it, is not something that should be on a Political poster.
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And these hot guys are also making commercial for a porn movie?
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http://www.politics.hu/20100219/the-democratic-forum-more-independent-than-even-they-would-prefer#comment
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Are we sure we are not getting a bit moral panic here (US-style)?
How should a woman look on a political ad?
Like Ildiko Lendvai?
Is botox-type of a face the requirement to make a political carrier for a woman now?
But how about Krisztina Morvai, is she not a *bit* too hot to be a politician, or she is already too old and had a couple of children so she is used?
girls can get it
Dear Viking,
Thanks for asking the question about “moral panic US style.” Just what was going through my mind. Men responding to visual sex appeal through pictures brings out a shrill, hysterical and neurotic response in women in Anglo Saxon countries. American women strike me as being very creepy.
FL: couldn’t have said it better myself.
Did you not read the article. The bottom poster is from the movie ‘Mean Girls’ and has nothing to do with MDF or any other party, its just a mash up.
Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree
@ Viking;
Yes, lets look at the poster that you attached. Guys standing around smiling and joking amongst themselves in layers of clothing and not prancing around with f*@* faces and leather pants pretending to be Chippendale Dancers.
That is what my problem is.
” How should a woman look like in a political ad?”…Like your wife, like your Mother and your sister. Like these girls minus the ” I know your really, really want me big boy” look.
Real women.
As for the “moral panic”, hardly. I just find the supposed “message” from these posters offensive.
” How should a woman look like in a political ad?”…Like your wife, like your Mother and your sister. Like these girls minus the ” I know your really, really want me big boy” look.
justasking at March 1, 2010 10:34 PM
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My daughter look like that, but my wife claims she has the attitude after me…
@ Viking;
So what your really saying is, you walk around with the ” I know you really really want be big boy” look on you face?
And that working for ya?
And that working for ya?
justasking at March 1, 2010 11:37 PM
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Of course, I got my wife with that attitude
Should it not be “want me be big boy”?
I just make the version for the women, otherwise my wife gets jealous
@Erik
Californian highschool überbitches mixing with strict looking Central European debutantes? You naughty naughty man (nudge, nudge).
These poster images and poses are rather typical of fashion advertising. They look just like the models used in ads to sell women anything from perfume to handbags to shoes. If you want to go after MDF for this, then you can just as well go after Calvin Klein, Gucci and thousands of others.
Men might see these posters! Horror of horrors! What might happen if they do?!
Sure it’s lowbrow, but then so is much of politics. I’m still more concerned about what MDF stands for, and what they might do if elected. If they used male “beefcake” images to appeal to women- it wouldn’t bother me. It wouldn’t be politicallly substantive, but then what is when it comes to political ads?
@ Farkas László
I find these posters rather sad, not for anything in them, but for the fact that Dávid Ibolya must have approved them. This reminds me of an identical effort by Milosevic and his wife to bring their party back to life: the same hopelessly off-centre attempt at devising a ‘cool’ image for their party. I am a bit disappointed in DI. I would have thought her a much more discerning woman.
Kedves Elle,
Of course. Politics is often as refined and elegant as a Three Stooges film! In the modern world of advertising, public relations and highly paid consultants, the buzzwords are “demographics”, “market segment” and “target market appeal”. Not just the purveyors of women’s handbags resort to such analysis, but political parties as well. Ads cost money, and so the “resources” have to be spent well in order to influnece people. A man like Joseph Goebbels would have understood totally. He was a natural born “public relations” man. Had he been born in the US, no doubt he would have found his spiritual home on Madison Avenue, peddling soap.
When I look at these models, I can’t help but wonder what other modelling gigs they have been in on, and which ones they will move on to in the future? Will it be cosmetics, jewelry or shoes? Perhaps some other political party will “recycle” them four years hence?
@ Farkas László
Well, whatever they become … I still wonder how anyone could have sold this image on a target-market pitch to DI. She, surely, is not gullible enough to think that dressing the old sheep in lamb’s clothing will find a target anywhere. I would have preferred a more dignified exit for her. Still, no matter.
Hello again Elle,
Rather than being an isolated incident, I actually prdeict more of this in the future and in future elections. “DI” was “sold” no doubt by a “focus team”. Such groups have their own way of monitoring ad effectivenes, and will style their future strategies accordingly.
The incredible irony is that it seems that the more “mature” a democracy is in terms of years, the more “immature” the advertising gets.
Those of you who have travelled in Latin cultures like Italy or in Latin America should be rather amused by the indignation these posters seem to cause! Welcome to lands where porn stars run for office, where women’s breasts are exposed on advertising billboards and where each ad is cheesier than the next. You see it everywhere in some of these countries, from TV to ads.
I go back to my original point that responses and tolerance (or lack thereof) to such images varies by culture, especially among the womenfolk. In some countries, women are tolerant of such things, and in many others, especially in Anglo Saxon cultures affected by Puritanism (or by Islamic countries run by sharia mullahs), it provokes an angry response.
@ Farkas Laszlo
I did not find the ads offensive, just very surprising because I am not used to see political ads similar to clothing ads etc.
I have no proof, but I would bet that political parties in Canada and the USA have thought of getting the youth vote with such ads and did some market survey and found that the public was turned off, therefore they did not use such ads.
IMHO, North American political parties would turn to such ads in a New York minute if it meant getting youth votes.
In fact, I would like to see similar non-partisan ads to encourage youths that it’s “cool to vote”
for the political party of you choice
Dear Olga,
I appreciate that. Do I believe political ads and messages should be issue and policy based instead of playing on prurience, fears and emotions? Absolutly! Is that going to happen all te time, given human nature? I think not, as I am a realist. Some of us respond to intellectual appeals, while others respond to appeals to fear, or images of a “non-intellectual” nature.
Nothing has made me a realist more than travelling around in this world! In India kissing in public can get you arrested! In some countries bribing police is a mandatory precondition for staying OUT of trouble; in others it gets you IN serious trouble! In some countries a woman flashing her breasts gets elected to public office; in others, it would land her in jail!
When you’ve witnessed enough of these kind of inconsistentcies, you learn to take people as they are and work with the situation, such as it is.
In the middle of the Yuppie-years in Sweden the SocialDemocrats (SAP, the party in Government like 70 years the last 100 years and member of the same Socialist-International as Hungarian MSZP) put out a series of add that showed your typical yuppie (young white smart dressed people) with typical yuppie accessories at that time (Dalmatiner dog, Porche car, etc) together with a typical SocialDemocratic political message
It was a bit different and made for some comments and they survived in people’s memory as being political ads that stood out
But they contained paid models
If you go to:
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http://mdf.hu/
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and click on the picture of the boys and girls that are in these posters, you will here, like Gyöngyvér (22), explain why he/she is voting MDF, in the same clothes as used on the posters.
These are obviously real members, campaigning openly for the MDF party, so what can be wrong to show them up, coupled with the attitude of the ‘New Young MDF’?
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Where is the political message ‘elle/sophie’ is asking? It has 2 set of slogans dominating the posters and these posters are no more or less political than showing up Bokros, or God forbid, Krisztina Morvai’s cute face, on a big poster with some political message (but in the latter case ‘elle/sophie’ would not complain , just drivel of support)
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In some election ago, was it Fidesz (?), who were caught using models to star as typical Fidesz-voters – Is that a better thing?
I am jerking off so strong with this girls, at least a political poster worth of something..
I also checked the website, the one in the middle has a sexy voice, kinda La Lohan style, jerking off!!
When will we see Bokros in a tight argyle sweater?
Don’t forget the gay vote!
When will we see Bokros in a tight argyle sweater?
Don’t forget the gay vote!
Luka di kuka at March 3, 2010 1:17 PM
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Yes, Bokros look a bit cud-able, right?
Not like Morvai and Vona, they sound so angry all the time, even if Morvai obviously got A+ in her latest training “Smile at all times”, but you tend though come out a bit superior then.
Bokros, on the other hand look and sound like a typical cud-able soft Hungarian Teddy Bear
What you would like to have in your bed, Luka?