Sunday, September 26, 2010

Here we blow

I wanted to write these ads up months ago, but initially had a hard time finding them on YouTube. Fortunately, it's never too late to deal with something this shitty.



We all know beer ads - especially light beer ads - are typically awful. That's what happens. But I've found this ad particularly inexplicable from the beginning. Why?

So the plot of the ad is, this guy is going to his softball game and thinks his girlfriend's book club is lame and boring. Then he realizes they have Bud Light and decides he'd rather just hang out there, drink beer, hit on his girlfriend's friends, and invite over all his buddies to party as well.

As far as I can see, there are two options. Either Bud Light condones this asshole's behavior:

"It's a party whenever Bud Light's around! Drop what you were doing, ignore all rules of social interaction, act like a complete creep! All to get that sweet, sweet nectar into your body!"

Or they don't:

"Bud Light: preferred beer of total douchebags!"

It's hard to imagine they're going for the latter, so: yeah! Bud Light, everyone! I know you and your girlfriend had separate plans for the day, but forget that shit! Barge into her book club! Disrupt that fucker! Get all the women drunk and try for an orgy! Invite your equally lame (and apparently subliterate) friends over and turn it into some sort of entirely undeserved mixer! Oh, and because the women are women, they will know their place and acquiesce quietly to your boorish behavior in spite of their reservations! Here we go!

Back when I made this post, I mentioned a second ad besides the Dodge ad in question that involved the Founding Fathers in a questionable way. Here it is:



Ben Franklin was a noted lover of beer. Without knowing anything about his preferences, though, I feel like he would not have been a Bud Light drinker.

Washington: "Where the blazes is Jefferson?"
Founding Father 2: "T.J.? He's probably still writing that 'declaration.'"

I'm not sure who the second guy is supposed to be. Alexander Hamilton? John Adams? James Madison? He sort of looks like Ben Franklin to me, but that other guy is supposed to be Franklin. The hat and coat are reminiscent of Paul Revere, but calling Paul Revere a "founding father" is a real stretch.

[Jefferson rides in and holds up two six-packs of Bud Light]
Jefferson: "Gentlemen!"
FF2: "Here we go!"

It's about time someone invented shitty beer!

[James Brown's "Living in America" plays]
Washington [dancing with a woman]: "Would you like to be the second lady?"

No, you guys, Jefferson was the philanderer. It's like you don't care about American history!

Eventually:

Washington: "We should do this every Fourth of July!"

The Fourth of July: celebration of American independence, or excuse to break out some terrible light beer and hit on every woman in sight? You be the judge.

This ad doesn't really offend me, but as with the Dodge ad, I find the use of figures from American history as pitchmen to be weird and off-putting. Here at least it's clearly intended to be funny; surely no one would take away from this that Washington and Jefferson would have necessarily endorsed Bud Light. Either way, it seems just a bit strange and/or inappropriate to have an ad where one of the Founding Fathers outright shits on the Declaration of Independence, regardless of why.

3 comments:

Quivering P. Landmass said...

It's like Budweiser saw a President's Day ad for a mattress store and thought, "Hey, good idea."

Anonymous said...

Fortunately, our POS government schools don't teach anything about American history, so it's doubtful anyone under 30 even knows how these guys are.

Anonymous said...

George Washington careening a Challenger right into the front line of the British army is not 'weird and off-putting'. It's absolutely epic.