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A web video produced by Denmark’s Tourism bureau was supposed to lure tourists to the Scandinavian country. Instead, it’s drawn the ire of Danes. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Anders Lindemann, a Danish Broadcasting journalist who’s been following the story.
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MARCO WERMAN: A web video has caused a big stir in Denmark. In it, a young Danish woman holds a baby on her lap and looks into the camera.
KAHN: My name is Kahn and I’m from Denmark, and this here is my baby boy. His name is August. Yeah, I’m doing this video because I’m trying to find August’s father. So if you’re out there and you see this then this is for you.
WERMAN: As the woman explains, she met a tourist a year and a half ago. They were together for just one night, then he disappeared. Now, she says, she just wants the baby’s father to know. The video’s gotten hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube but it’s not real. It was actually produced and put on the web by Denmark’s Tourism Bureau. Anders Lindemann is a journalist with Danish Broadcasting. What this video conveys to me, Anders, is not even an ad for Denmark but kind of weird testimonial from a young woman who had unprotected sex with a foreign tourist. What message is the Tourist Board actually trying to convey?
ANDERS LINDERMANN: Well, that’s a big question that everyone is trying to answer here in Denmark. The Director of the Visit to Denmark, the Tourist Bureau, has said that the story shows the Kahn is a Danish woman with dignity and she lives in a free society, and this society gives her the space to make the choices that she as a woman wants to make in her life. And the Director of Visit Denmark feels that she markets Denmark as a free place where there’s a lot of space and she’s very happy that the video on YouTube has gotten so many hits around the world.
WERMAN: When the video first showed up on YouTube, was it even clear that it was from Denmark’s Tourist Board?
LINDERMANN: No, the ordinary Danish guy or girl most of them first got aware of it when the media picked the story up, but now, of course, the Tourist Bureau who posted this video plays it as the proof that the video worked because now Denmark has gotten the publicity that was first intended.
WERMAN: Well, apparently the Tourist Board took the ad down. Maybe they’ve realized that they made a mistake.
LINDERMANN: Of course, them and some politicians that thought that this video promoted Denmark as a country where the women were notoriously promiscuous. I think that has been the whole core of this debate about this video posted by Visit Denmark.
WERMAN: At one point in the ad, the woman mentions the word “hygge.” Let’s hear this part.
KAHN: I do remember though that we were talking about Denmark, and the thing we have was here with hygge that foreign people always ask about. So guess I decided to show him what hygge is all about because we went back to my house and, yeah, we ended up having sex.
WERMAN: So first of all she’s a really good actress, and second of all what does hygge mean?
LINDERMANN: Well, hygge directly translated means coziness. It’s like when you go to the summer cottage and you make a fire and everything. You’re with your family and friends. That’s just coziness. That’s hygge. But hygge also has another meaning. Among young people in Denmark hygge can be like a cocky pick up line if you want to get a girl or a guy and you’re partying. Some people come over and say, “Hey, do you want to hygge?” And that could mean, you know, in a cocky way, “Do you want to have sex?”
WERMAN: So, you know, in the end, Anders, do you think this was just some misguided attempt by the Tourist Bureau to be hip and kind of plugging into the social network scene?
LINDERMANN: Honestly, I can’t tell you. All I can say is that this has been a very controversial way here in Denmark to promote Denmark to foreigners.
WERMAN: Do you think they’ll do it again?
LIEBERMANN: No, I don’t think so.
WERMAN: Anders Lindemann, a journalist with Danish Broadcasting. You can see the Danish tourism ad on our website at theworld.org. Anders, thanks so much.
LIEBERMAN: You’re welcome.
WERMAN: We have a little something to straighten out, too. Yesterday, we spoke with John Sheils from the Lewin Group. We described the group as a non-partisan healthcare management consulting firm. The Lewin Group does describe itself as non-partisan, but the firm is owned by a subsidiary of healthcare giant United Health Group. Several listeners wrote to say that we should have pointed that out. Thank you and you’re right. We should have.
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