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When Bud Lite gives somebody a commemorative can to celebrate their personal milestone of fake womahood, I would say they've sailed past bland ol' marketing and are deliberately pandering. And while I have a degree of tolerance for pandering, I have grown incredibly tired of the relentless affirmation of falshehoods and poor understandings woven throughout the trans phenomenon.
You want to put a rainbow flag over a six-pack? I think that's cringe, but I'm fine with it because I understand that symbol to be vague and open enough for people to read what they want from it. You want to personally celebrate a weirdo with their farcical, unconvincing transition into womanhood? Well... why? Could you imagine Bud giving commemorative cans to Dolezal for her inspiring journey into 'blackness'? And what would the reaction from the hoi polloi be? Sure, it wouldn't affect me personally. But it would be such an opportunity loss to not criticize it as abjectly stupid, or to question what the hell Bud was even thinking when they greenlit this stunt, and to also point out this pattern in marketing is increasingly ubiquitous from all major brands.
No, this doesn't affect the taste or quality of the product. But the cultural assumptions and messaging being baked into media and ads - now coming from your 'classic degenerate US beer company' - are absolutely obnoxious and demanding a pushback. What specificially is Bud celebrating here? What values are they displaying when they treat Dylan's transition as some legitimate thing that isn't to be questioned? Does the average employee even believe it? Or are they just going to continue ramrodding this shit, and once cornered default to "Hey guys! We just want to be nice and inclusive, no big deal! Choo choo", as if there isn't
a festering sociopolitical rat's nest of unexamined assumptions and contradictions roiling underneath?
"I just consume what I like and pay no attention to the marketing" is very much where I'd like to be, and probably where I still would be if this was the era of non-political Budweiser Frogs. Unfortunately, I have learned that I 'live in a society', and wokeness is intent on appropriating and weaponizing everything it can get its hands on; 'forcing' consensus through pop culture while skipping over every serious deliberation that could undercut it.
The Mulvaney cans are one of the biggest flexes I've seen, in many ways because of Bud Lite's preexisting image of a low-class red tribe beer. As if to say "even this territory can be conquered and made fabulous and gay, and boy aren't you the dysfunctional non-nice weirdo if disagree with any of this". One wonders why this whole performance - separate from the beer itself - might piss people off.
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