Giant Rugby Ad in Australia Features a Wallaby Probably Raping a Lion

An Australian company called Sportsbet (bet you can’t guess what it does) found a remarkably horrible way to greet international visitors at Melbourne Airport — they painted an enormous (170 meters by 90 meters) sign directly under the international flight path depicting what appears to be interspecies rugby mascot rape. For the record, Sportsbet’s spokespeople have insisted that the wallaby is just “cuddling” the lion.

According to the Herald Sun, the sign, which Sportsbet painted to launch its Rugby 2013 Lions Tour Rooting for the Wallabies on Thursday (the Lions ended up winning Saturday night’s match, in case you’ve been waiting on tenterhooks for that information), has sparked a fair amount of public outrage, probably because Australians would rather not have the very first thing newcomers see when the fly to Australia be a giant rape ad. Sportsbet has responded to this outrage with the stale refrain of all advertising fuck-ups who make gross miscalculations about what the general public will think is edgy: “It’s just a joke!”