Porsche Ad Shows Car Zipping Past World-Famous Statue of Jesus Christ, Video Removed After Public Notices What's Missing
A new advertisement from Porsche was pulled and then rereleased after viewers noticed a very critical part of the scenic landscape had been digitally removed.
In the ad, uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday, a 911 S/T could be seen zipping around the scenic and historic landscape of Portugal.
One shot showed the sports car zooming down a street with the 25 de Abril bridge, connecting the capital Lisbon to nearby Almada, in the background.
Further back in the shot and behind the bridge itself was an odd stone pedestal without any sort of monument on top. Anyone familiar with statues of Jesus Christ around the world would instantly recognize it — and realize the key element missing from this shot.
The pedestal is the base of Almada’s Santuario de Cristo Rei statue, which was conspicuously missing from the Porsche ad.
That’s right — this car ad literally edited out Jesus Christ himself.
People across the internet instantly realized something was wrong, and posts calling out Porsche for the religious revisionism were seen by millions.
Hey, @Porsche , why did you erase the statue of Jesus Christ from your video filmed in Lisbon? pic.twitter.com/VxcfUBrN8D
— Alex B. (@maisumcarneiro) August 5, 2023
According to a Portuguese travel website, the statue itself rises 92 feet above the 269-foot pedestal itself; this isn’t something that just vanishes in the background, but a highly visible and iconic part of the Lisbon metro area.
It might be a towering reminder of Christ’s sacrifice in real life, but in Porsche’s imagined world, this simply doesn’t seem to be the case.
The commercial was made private after massive outrage. It reappeared Monday morning — with the Jesus statue in its proper place.
The original still be seen through an archival link to the ad’s YouTube page. The video also was uploaded on X, formerly known as Twitter, for all to see.
They have now made the video private on YouTube.
I’ll just leave it here.
I don’t think @elonmusk will cave to censorship on this platform. pic.twitter.com/abNLNJAler— Alex B. (@maisumcarneiro) August 6, 2023
Unfortunately for Porsche, digitally erasing a Christ statue is much easier than purging the internet of a cynical and embarrassing ad.
Public outrage was swift and severe, and the sentiment continued to grow as the video was seen by more people.
Many were left wondering why a top international automaker would do such a thing, while others seemed to know that this is just another step in the rabid erasure of Christianity.
One user came to the defense of Porsche, claiming it’s a common trend for the company to edit out religious iconography.
I have worked with Porsche on ads before – for worldwide commercials it is very common to edit out any religious landmarks/signage. However for localised national ads that’s not the case. Any big brand does that, there is no “conspiracy” behind it.
— georgegrant.eth |👑.btc (@TheOneNFT) August 6, 2023
At the very least, this testimony seems to confirm what the video plainly shows — the statue of Jesus was purposefully and intentionally edited out of the advertisement.
Porsche had not commented on the edited video as of Monday morning.
We are now living in a time when conservative consumers hold a substantial amount of power (a sobering fact that Bud Light discovered firsthand), and it would seem the automaker should be more careful about erasing a powerful symbol of the world’s largest faith.
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