A wacky TV commercial from Mellat Bank, Iran’s National Bank, spread like wildfire on the Internet among Iranian netizens. Iran’s government-sponsored bank launched a TV commercial for the Iranian New Year holiday based on the music video produced for  Jennifer Lopez’s “Papi” single. The commercial centers on a man who is the winner of the Mellat Bank’s Lottery who is being chased by each man he crosses paths with. This sparked a series of jokes and mockery among Iranian netizens of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statement at Columbia University in which he stated, “Iran does not have any homosexuals”.

Malekis, an Iranian YouTube user whose comment became the top comment on this YouTube video, jokes: “Wow, there are many homosexuals in Iran and we didn’t know about it!”

Iran is governed by a traditional Islamist government that view women’s role as subservient to their men, and this is projected in local TV programs, hence there are no women in this commercial.

Samiar.sh ridicules Iran’s Supreme Leader’s message for the New Year that made national production the goal of the upcoming year for Iranians. Samiar commented: “And, this is the first national production of the year.”  

Ariaa also left a comment on the Balatarin website, “Watching uncensored satellite TV is only illegal for people but not for the officials!”