The Simpsons Movie is released next week, and The Simpsons Movie hype machine is doing its best to ensure that every single section of society knows about it – especially the section of society marked 'outraged beardy rain magic pagans'.
Because – while the majority of people can't contain their excitement over seeing if The Simpsons Movie is good like The Simpsons used to be or a bit disappointing like The Simpsons is now – the pagans of the world are genuinely grouping together to cast a rain spell to destroy The Simpsons Movie. Well, not The Simpsons Movie per se, but a giant 180ft painting of Homer Simpson in his underwear that's turned up next to the Cerne Abbas giant – the famous hill carving of a man with his cock out that doubles up as a pagan fertility symbol. It's not the sacrilegious cartoon mocking their ancient artifact that galls the pagans the most, though – they'd much rather prefer it was one of the Transformers is all.
It seems that no publicity campaign is complete these days without the requisite amount of pagan-affronting. For example, there literally wasn't a person on Earth who gave even a fraction of a toss about the new Trinny And Susannah series until Trinny And Susannah defaced a holy pagan effigy recently. The resulting polite uproar by up to 22 pagans has made sure that the Trinny And Susannah show will at least now have an audience of around 22 people, and should make strong inroads into the influential hemp-wearing demographic.
And now The Simpsons Movie is getting in on the act too. Even though marketing for The Simpsons Movie has so far only extended to a competition to see which Springfield gets to host the premiere, a makeover to turn some shops into Kwik-E-Marts and a promotional website that loads so slowly we thought about taking our own lives, The Simpsons Movie marketing juggernaut has finally hit full speed, by outraging as many pagans as it possibly can and making a giant erect chalk penis look even more stupid than usual.
The Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset is one of the most well-known pagan fertility symbols in the world. A 180-foot chalk carving of a naked erect man used primarily for children to maypole-dance around, the importance of the Cerne Abbas giant to pagans cannot be oversold. And now there's an equally large image of Homer Simpson waving a giant doughnut around in his pants next to it which, as expected, has got the pagans stroppy enough to do rain spells and stuff. The Telegraph reports:
A Homer Simpson brandishing a doughnut was painted next to the figure in a publicity stunt for a film company. It has been painted with water-based biodegradable paint which will wash away as soon as it rains. Ann Bryn-Evans, the joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation, said: "It's very disrespectful and not at all aesthetically pleasing. We were hoping for some dry weather but we'll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away. I'm amazed they got permission to do something so ridiculous. It's an area of scientific interest."
Yeah, so long as your chosen field of scientific focus is massive chalk penises carved into a hill by randy peasants. But now this pagan-insulting has been taken up by both Trinny And Susannah and The Simpsons Movie, it'll be interesting to see who else decides to use this tactic next. We have heard, however, that when Chico from X Factor releases his next single he plans to do a poo and wipe his bum on Stonehenge.
Incidentally, what sort of double standards are these? When a giant Homer Simpson is painted next to an image of a naked man with a boner nobody bats an eyelid, but when we stand about naked and visibly aroused next to a poster for The Simpsons Movie outside our local cinema we get arrested and called a nonce. We feel persecuted.
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