Man Up: The CEO Of "Light Beer" Takes Issue With Miller Lite

End of GenderThis piece was originally published on the Good Men Project as part of a special series on the End of Gender. This series includes bloggers from Role/RebootGood Men ProjectThe Huffington PostSalonHyperVocalMs. MagazineYourTangoPsychology TodayPrincess Free ZoneThe Next Great Generation, and Man-Making.

Jon Bois is an associate editor at SB Nation. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky. You can tweet at him at @jon_bois, and you can read his work on SB Nation here.

Starting last football season, a series of “Man Up” Miller Lite commercials has aired. These ads suggest, or in some cases explicitly state, that drinking another brand of beer is “un-manly,” as are such actions as wearing tight jeans, singing karaoke, and carrying a “man-purse.”

I am certainly not the first to take issue with these commercials. They’re insulting, they’re hostile, they disparage men who would dare violate gender norms. And they do so with impunity, because the hard truth is that most of us are fine with this.

As a prop, these commercials feature bottles of beer labeled “LIGHT BEER.” Below is a series of emails from the concerned CEO of Light Beer, Tom Higgins.

♦◊♦

FROM THE DESK OF TOM HIGGINS
CEO, LIGHT BEER

Light Beer 1

Dear MillerCoors,

I was watching football this afternoon when I saw your newest Miller Lite commercial:

 

Firstly, I would like to thank you sincerely for granting us some free product placement! I’m not sure what motivated you to make such a gesture, but I suppose there is honor among brewers, eh?  We at Light Beer are dedicated to offering an alternative for those who prefer beer with “less taste” as opposed to “more taste”, and I would certainly be happy to discuss the possibility of us working together in the future.

However, I must say that we at Light Beer were puzzled by the commercial itself. The bartender was dismissive, insulting, and even a little angry at the gentleman simply because he elected to wear a scarf. While such a scarf may indeed be labeled “women’s” on the rack at the store, we should not feel beholden to arbitrary gender rules.

More importantly, we should never attempt to shame someone for disregarding such socially limiting rules. He would like to wear the scarf, and so he is wearing it. This commercial suggests—check that, explicitly states—that this man is less of a man for doing so. By extension, you are validating oppressive gender norms.

But, heck. I bet this was just an honest mistake, and I’m sure you didn’t mean it.

Cheers (beer term!),

Tom

CEO, Light Beer

 ♦◊♦

FROM THE DESK OF TOM HIGGINS

CEO, LIGHT BEER

Light Beer 2

Dear MillerCoors,

We just completed an extensive re-branding campaign in which we changed our flagship product’s logo and slogan, and I was delighted to see that these changes were reflect in yet another complimentary product placement in your Miller Lite ad!

Once again, though… I don’t mean to be a Nitpicking Norman, but I couldn’t help but notice that once again, your commercial is… well, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you were leveraging already-existing gender biases to try to shame men into drinking your beer.

This ad explicitly defines the drinking of Light Beer as &mmp;ldquo;unmanly behavior.” Far more discouraging, though, is the insinuation that being “unmanly” is inherently undesirable. Did you know, sir, that there are many human beings who are not men? Did you also know that there are many men who have no interest in the contemporary pop-culture definition of “men,” and that we have no call to shame them simply for being who they are?

I understand that in a company as large as MillerCoors, plenty of things could easily get lost in the shuffle. You may, however, want to consider hiring a new advertising agency. This one doesn’t seem very nice.

Happy suds,

Tom

CEO, Light Beer

♦◊♦

FROM THE DESK OF TOM HIGGINS
CEO, LIGHT BEER

Light Beer 3

Dear MillerCoors,

I had the misfortune of catching your latest ‘Man Up” ad, and the greater misfortune of seeing that once again, you have chosen to associate our Light Beer product with your unfortunate message.

I pointed this out to my friend. You know what he said? He said it was “no big deal.” He said I’m taking things far too seriously, that I’m reading too far into it, that I’m just being the PC police. He told me that it was just a joke, and said that I should get over it.

That is precisely the reason I feel that it’s important to take issue with these commercials. They attempt to mock, emasculate, and shame people for the grand crime of being themselves. And yes, these are just 30-second commercials, but if commercials did not leave an impact, they would not exist. They help to shape and validate opinions.

If taking something too seriously is indeed the worst crime I commit, I count it as a good day, another day in which I didn’t make men feel like shit for being the people they are.

You know how much power gender norming holds in our society? You’ll willing to lean on that lever even if it means, slowly but surely, uprooting people from their confidence, from their identities, from their pride in themselves. And you’re doing it to sell beer, for all the darn reasons.

Please remove all LIGHT BEER products from future advertisements. They are breaking my heart.

Tom

CEO, Light Beer

♦◊♦

FROM THE DESK OF TOM HIGGINS

CEO, LIGHT BEER

Light Beer 4

MillerCoors bros,

Please ignore the letterhead at the top… we’re still sort of in the takeover process. Higgins took the buyout, but he asked us not to “continue beating the general public in the face with gender limitations” or something… whatever. He was a real “PC police” kind of dude. Guy was just annoying.

Anyway, yeah, tell the agency that you bros can go ahead and keep using Light Beer in those commercials from here on out. Oh, and hey, while you’re at it, tell them I had an idea for an ad: get a dude and have him sing Kelly Clarkson on karaoke.

And then he goes to the bar and orders a beer, and the bartender says he shouldn’t sing that song because he’s not a girl. And he’s just ashamed, dude. So ashamed that when his next turn comes up to sing, he lies about it.

That would be so sick, bros. God. I hate it when people are themselves.

– Stevens

Photo credit Dottie Mae/Flickr

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