Score one for

the bluenoses

During its NFL pregame show, one of the networks has a feature called “Come On, Man.” It’s a collection of clips from the previous week’s games that show a player or coach or official having a brain cramp.

Fargo has had its own “come on, man” moment this week, but it had nothing to do with football.

It was, of course, the North Dakota tourism ad that apparently got a few pairs of underwear in a bunch around town. The ad showed two guys sitting at the window in the HoDo flirting with three girls who were standing on the sidewalk outside. What caused the wadded panties was the ad’s copy, “Drinks, dinner, decisions. Arrive a guest. Leave a legend.” The tourism department pulled the ad after some folks complained.

Come on, man.

I’m no great fan of the state’s tourism department; I think many of its advertisements are dumb and desperate and don’t make North Dakota that attractive to most vacationers. Granted, there isn’t all that much for the state to sell, tourism-wise (and don’t tell me what a big part of the state economy tourism is, because North Dakota isn’t considered a premier vacation spot anywhere but North Dakota).

But Lord, the tourism folks’ job is hard enough without a few people going into full blue-nose mode.

The ad apparently was aimed at the younger demographic in Canadian markets. It was touting North Dakota’s night life, such as it is. If I were a young Canadian, I would’ve at least looked at the ad, if not bought what it was selling; Winnipeg has more of a night life than Fargo, but you sell the product you’ve got to sell. You gotta try, anyway.

But some locals got upset, primarily over the “Arrive a guest. Leave a legend” tagline. Yeah, it’s arguably a very mild sexual innuendo; if you interpret it that way, it’s actually chuckle-worthy. But judging from the reactions of some people, the tagline might as well have been, “North Dakota: Come here and indulge your sickest sexual fantasies.”

The young people in the ad weren’t dressed overly provocatively. One of the guys inside the HoDo is nursing a half-mug of beer; it’s not like the table was full of dead soldiers. The kids obviously are flirting, but there’s not a leer in sight. It’s a vignette that probably plays out a score of times (no pun intended) on any given weekend night on Broadway. It was about as innocent as any ad not aimed at the Amish.

But that didn’t stop the Moral Guardians of the Red River Valley from getting upset. The ad was sleazy and tasteless, they said.

My suspicion is that these are people who set the bar on sleazy and tasteless a bit low. An-inch-above-the-ground low. They reacted to an ad that showed a common street scene, and included a mild sexual joke – maybe – like it was a blot on the state’s escutcheon.

I guess North Dakota shouldn’t try to sell its nightlife to young Canadians. Maybe we could promote the huge number of Wednesday-night church activities that go on in the state. Maybe we could convince them to come here by repositioning long underwear as a sort of upper-Midwest Victoria’s Secret thing. (No, on second thought, that may make them think of that dirty s-word.) Maybe we could talk about what great milkshakes they have at the local Dairy Queen. Any of those obviously would send young Canucks streaming across the border.

Probably not in the desired direction, though.

It’s another case where North Dakotans pick themselves up and throw themselves down the stairs. If you do anything within the state’s borders that wouldn’t have been allowed in the 19th Century, the moral guardians show up at your door with pitchforks and torches.

Actually, and this isn’t as much of a stretch as it appears, the furor over the ad is of a piece with much of right-wing politics in this country. The people who tut-tutted over the ad and the people who want to “restore” this country to its mythical status as a conservative, Christian nation have something in common. They want the world to be not as it is, but as they would like it to be. They are not members of what somebody in the Bush Administration once called “the reality-based community.”

Truth is, young people flirt. Young people even have sex, although flirting and having sex are not inextricably connected. If North Dakota’s benighted tourism folks think they can get Canadians here by promoting downtown Fargo as a good place to flirt, that’s as good a reason to promote it as any. It doesn’t mean we’re advertising the city as a sort of Midwestern Bangkok.

I mean, if you’re wanting to attract said young people, what’s a better way? Church suppers?Horseshoes?The county fair? Personally, I think any young person who would be tempted to drive four hours for that type of amusement probably should be stopped and frisked at the border. It would be a little creepy.

Still, the bluenoses won this round. The ad will be pulled and the agency that created it probably will catch some flak. And, since the story hit the national wires, North Dakotans will once again be seen by the rest of the country as humorless hayseeds.

Come on, man.