The 60th anniversary of the debut of the Porsche 911 is here, and Porsche is going all out.

Who wouldn’t use such a thing as an opportunity to cash in and remind people that the brand and the product are beloved?

Porsche even spent millions producing a video showcasing their 911 driving through iconic places throughout the years, recreating the history and evolution of the car and how it has fit into the changing lives and culture of its customers.

It’s a nice marketing move. Except for one thing: they had to make the video private because somebody noticed that in the scene where the 911 drives through Lisbon Portugal the video producers edited out the similarly iconic massive statue of Jesus Christ, erasing not just the history and culture of the city but of course of Christianity itself.

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

It’s a short scene, but not a small thing. Somebody went to some effort to erase the statue that has stood in Lisbon during the entire history in which the Porsche 911 has existed.

Christo Rei, as the statue is known, was built in the 50s as an expression of Portugal’s gratitude for having avoided getting dragged into the horrors of WWII. Modeled after the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, it overlooks the city and is indelibly associated with Lisbon due to its prominence.

Yet Porsche erased it from history.

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

Nobody could have objected to filming the drive from another angle–nobody would have noticed, in fact–but Porsche clearly wanted to get a majestic view of the scene, and apparently thought that having a view of Jesus ruined the view.

As you might imagine, many people saw this as a slap in the face, and they should. It WAS a slap in the face, and would never have been done to any other religious icon from any other religion.

Christianity has a special place in the hearts of our transnational elite, and by that, I mean that they hate it with a passion reserved for all things beloved by the hoi polloi.

It’s impossible to know at what level of the marketing department the decision to rip Jesus out of time and space took place, but obviously, somebody went to special effort to do so.

The result is predictable. For no conceivable benefit, Porsche has created a controversy where none need not have existed. It is unlikely that this will seriously damage sales in the near term because Porsche has strong brand loyalty, but it does mean that Porsche has thrown away a tremendous marketing opportunity to strengthen their brand and weakened it instead.

And for what? For no reason other than to signal disgust with a segment of the population, intentionally or not.

This is of course another example of how the transnational elite feels disgust for average people, and can no longer hide it. They don’t even try to hide it, because they live in a world where everybody feels the same way. They are simply saying out loud to the rest of us what they have been saying in private for decades.

The 2020s are apparently the decade in which the people at the top of the cultural pyramid believe that they are so secure in their perches at the top that they can express open contempt for the plebs. They have some reason to believe that: for the most part, they have gotten away with everything they have tried.

But the backlash to this is here as well. Bud Light has felt it. Target has felt it. A few school boards have experienced the wrath of people who have been aroused from their slumber.

Will Porsche? Probably not. Or not much. They have put a dent in their brand-new car, and that stings. But the demographics of their customer base aren’t exactly the cultural elite but aren’t exactly the hoi polloi either.

But the backlash is strong enough to convince the executives at Porsche to make their video private on YouTube to stem the bleeding, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see somebody get fired. That is something.

Even small victories are better than none.