JEFF GOLDSTEIN: The identity politics of beer: Tastes great, less testosterone.
Released as part of Women’s History Month in March of this year, a Miller Lite ad has only recently gone viral — and, as with Bud Light’s foray into “inclusivity” and transgender affirmation — it has done so for all the wrong reasons. Owned by Molson-Coors, Miller Lite is the second iconic American beer brand whose cosmopolitan, largely female marketing team — some of whom have dealt with the sudden public backlash to the ill-advised campaign by deleting their social media presences — decided was in desperate need of a pointed social conscience. Traditionally, Miller Lite, like Bud Light, has appealled to people who attend ball games, or brisket cookoffs, or fraternity parties. It lives inside red Solo cups and is eventually disposed of by the body largely in the same form as it was first ingested into it, albeit not quite as cold or fizzy.
In this iteration of the Woke beer assault, Miller Lite’s marketing team decided to “make a difference” by using actor and comedian Ilana Glazer to deliver one of those Tik Tok-esque smug lectures wherein the activist, addressing the camera, delivers a scolding monologue detailing the litany of wrongs committed against a particular identity group. In this case, what we’re being harangued about is the plight of women in the beer industry, both historically and at the present moment. Which, if this seems like a rather niche concern, that’s because it is.
Always.