Right Wing Media’s War on Light Beer
More Filling, Less Woke
By Kevin Howley, May 23, 2023
With the notable exception of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, conservatives are fond of reminding the rest of us that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But thanks to the reliably unhinged right wing outrage machine, there’s been plenty of free media for the makers of Bud Light and Miller Lite.
The rival beer producers are the latest corporations to run afoul of MAGA country for the sin of integrating diversity and inclusion messages in their marketing campaigns. Apparently, pitching light beer in nontraditional markets – women and the LGBTQ community – with smart and savvy advertising is a line in the sand for conservative pols and pundits.
That’s right, America. The war on woke is coming to a happy hour near you.
Trouble Brewing
Rest assured, this isn’t a bar fight. It’s not even a shouting match. It’s more like an intramural scrimmage between conservative wind bags to see who can fill the news vacuum between Donald Trump’s criminal indictment and Ron DeSantis’ “any day now” 2024 campaign launch.
Nonetheless, this episode reveals how conservative culture warriors whet their whistle on manufactured controversy, from electric vehicles and gas stoves to Hunter’s laptop. After all, if you haven’t got the time or the inclination to offer a coherent policy platform, you’re stuck with schoolyard taunts and empty-headed distraction. Talk about less filling.
For the uninitiated, TheRighting offers this “flight” of right-wing laments over woke beer.
Performative Outrage
The firestorm began when the transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, posted a video on Instagram for Bud Light pegged to March Madness. Before you could say, “Tastes Great, Less Filling,” both Mulvaney and Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company, were lambasted by anti-woke crusaders across the right-wing media sphere.
Writing for OutKick, which bills itself as “questioning the consensus and exposing the destructive nature of ‘woke’ activism,” Amber Harding wastes no time hurling vitriol Mulvaney’s way. “Try not to vomit,” she cautions readers, adding, “let’s head to Twitter for some consumer feedback.”
True to form, MAGA trolls pulled out all the stops. Before long, calls for boycotts – none more hyperbolic than the Daily Caller’s limp shot across the bow, “There’s No Way We’re Getting Over This, Bud Light” – gave way to high-profile performative outrage, exemplified by Kid Rock, whose viral video finds the publicity-hungry desperado laying waste to Bud Light with an assault rifle.
Where’s the ATF when you really need them?
“Full Bud Light”
For conservatives, the sky is in perpetual free fall. American Thinker offers Anheuser-Busch some friendly advice on the perils of wokeness: “Why the Bud Light Disaster Could Cripple the Entire Company’s Many Brands For Years.”
Back at the Daily Caller, they’re taking a victory lap for the success of the beer boycott with headlines like this: “The Bud Light Fiasco Proved Conservatives Already Have the Secret Weapon to Win.” Of course, contributor Gage Klipper reminds us, real Americans don’t approve of boycotts. “Protesting against business choices in the free market is not something conservatives are naturally inclined to do. But conservatives are finally starting to realize what time it is – that more campaigns like those against Bud Light are necessary to keep the country from going irreversibly off the cliff of corporate leftism.”
Despite the beer-infused uproar, woke corporatists haven’t seen the light. As The Daily Signal recently bemoaned, “4 More Companies Go ‘Full Bud Light’ in Their Support For Transgenderism.” Undeterred, right wingers uncovered equally egregious examples of the evils of woke corporations. The Blaze recently proclaimed, “Miller Lite Has Joined the Woke Cult: Beer Brand Appears to Hide Ultra-Feminist Ad Released Before Bud Light Boycott, But Internet Sleuths Are All Over It.”
Pegged to Women’s History Month, comedian Ilana Glazer’s pitch for Miller Lite ran under the right-wing radar before the Bud Light controversy gave the spot second life.
Cue the Crazies
All too predictably, conservatives took aim at Miller Lite with the same sound and fury. Townhall offered readers this bit of triumphalism: “Marketing Executive Behind Miller Lite’s Woke Rebrand Exposed As Another Lefty Locust.”
Meanwhile, Fox News executives, eager to repair the breach with the MAGA crowd, served up a series of reports from the frontlines of the light beer wars. The panel show, Outnumbered, featured a segment titled “Miller Lite Slammed for ‘Woke’ Ad: ‘Why Are They Messing With Beer Drinkers?’”
Fox opinion writer Dan Gainor weighed in with this diatribe: “Miller Lite attacked its customers, its own brand and the entire beer industry in a just-resurfaced commercial. The ad, which landed like a thud two months ago, isn’t as bad as the Bud Light-Dylan Mulvaney fiasco. But it’s similarly woke.”
Funny thing about “resurfaced” stories, they have a way of biting back.
Case in point: Ron DeSantis, the nation’s leading anti-woke crusader, stated in no uncertain terms that he supports the Bud Light boycott. But as the news site LGBTQ Nation reported, the would-be president “admitted that he prefers Guinness, a beer that has been advertising to LGBTQ+ customers as well.”
Between Disney’s counteroffensive to the Florida governor’s bullying and fellow Republicans’ growing concern over his corporate feuding, you can bet that on the campaign trail, a crowded field of GOP candidates will be throwing shade DeSantis’ way.
In the meantime, here’s to all the trans influencers, the ultra-feminists, and the corporate leftists. This Bud’s for you!
Kevin Howley is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Social Movement Studies, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. His most recent book is Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.
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Apparently, pitching light beer in nontraditional markets – women and the LGBTQ community – with smart and savvy advertising is a line in the sand for conservative pols and pundits. That’s right, America. The war on woke is coming to a happy hour near you. (Image: Flickr)
