Bud Lite made a terrible mistake when it used Dylan Mulvaney as a pitchman (pitch thing?) to market its product. While that was happening, though, a Miller Lite advertisement was floating under the radar. To its credit, it was pandering to actual women, not mentally delusional fake women. However, it is one of the most disgusting, vulgar, crude ads I’ve ever seen—and, ironically, it’s all framed as giving women their due.

The ad’s narrator/central figure is a busty young woman in her 20s or 30s, dressed in a loose-fitting sweater and a short skirt. She looks like a graduate from Smith who “identifies” as a “cis woman.” And she’s angry. Why is she angry? Because people no longer know that, historically, brewing used to be women’s work.

What that claim misses is that, historically, domestic brewing was women’s work; commercial brewing was always men’s work. But back to the angry young woman in the ad.

That forgotten history is bad, but what’s really bad is that the industry not only ignored women’s contributions but “they put us in bikinis.” She then walks into a set with walls plastered with the kind of beer ads that began in the 1970s, showing women in swimsuits, with the implied promise that…well, I’ve never been quite clear about the implied promise.

Image: Miller Lite ad screen grab. (Fair use.)

If you drink beer, sexy women will love you? Sexy women drink beer? Beer goggles make all women sexy? Whatever. The point was that the ads catered to their primarily male drinkers and associated the product with beautiful women. That’s because in the normal male psyche, beautiful women are a positive association, and you want that for your product.

Well, no more. As the ad’s angry narrator says, “it’s time beer made it up to women….” And that’s where the ad, rather than doing something nice, gets disgusting. It’s all about “$#!T.”

Miller is now a crusading company. “So, today, Miller Lite is on a mission, to clean up, not just their $#!T but the whole beer industry’s $#!T.” According to the ad, Miller is buying the “bad $#!T” of beautiful women in prior ads to turn that ad material into compost for women brewers.

The ad then switches to women who talk about composting and growing hops, all while associated with $#!T. There’s even a hashtag for people who wish to send old ads to Miller. Near the end of the ad, that angry spokeswoman reaches into a bag of “good $#!T” and gives it a sniff.

Let’s trace this trajectory. Once, beer was associated with beautiful women and heterosexual sex. Now, beer is associated with angry women and $#!T. Am I the only one who sees a problem here?

Hat tip: Not the Bee.