Miller Lite Responds To Backlash Over Woke, Feminist Beer Commercial: ‘Appreciate The Humor’

 Miller Lite responded to online controversy over an advertisement claiming that women are the “founding mothers” of beer by instructing customers to “appreciate the humor” in the campaign.

The beer brand’s advertisement, which was initially published in March but resurfaced online in recent days, blasted the industry’s past marketing campaigns which revolved around objectifying bikini-clad models, instead promising to donate fertilizer so that female brewers could grow hops, the flowers used as a bittering and stability agent in beer. Criticism over the advertisement comes weeks after Bud Light faced backlash for sending a custom beer can to self-described transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

“Here’s a little-known fact: women were among the very first to brew beer ever. From Mesopotamia to the Middle Ages to colonial America, women were the ones doing the brewing. Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis,” female comedian Ilana Glazer said in the advertisement, which coincided with Women’s History Month. “Look at this $#!T. Wild. It’s time beer made it up to women, so today Miller Lite is on a mission to clean up not just their $#!T, but the whole beer industry’s $#!T. Miller Lite has been scouring the internet for all this $#!T and buying it back so that they can turn it into good $#!T for women brewers.”

Social media users vented frustration over the advertisement and the brand’s nods to social justice and intersectionality. Molson Coors, the Canadian-American multinational conglomerate which owns the Miller Lite brand, nevertheless insisted in a statement this week to multiple news outlets that beer enthusiasts should not take the advertisement seriously.

“This video was about two things: worm poop and saying women shouldn’t be forced to mud wrestle in order to sell beer,” a company spokesperson said. “Neither of these things should be remotely controversial and we hope beer drinkers can appreciate the humor (and ridiculousness) of this video from back in March.”

The backlash to the advertisement occurs as several reports indicate that Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, has hemorrhaged sales after the brand partnered with Mulvaney, a man who claims to be a woman and chronicled his purported gender transition on social media. Executives for Anheuser-Busch have offered vague apologies, downplayed the extent of the campaign, and even hired veteran Republican lobbyists in attempts to win back conservatives who once consumed the beer.

 

The attempts to back away from Mulvaney have provoked additional backlash from the opposite end of the political spectrum: angered members of the LGBTQ movement are now demanding that Anheuser-Busch affirm their support for the ideology or face a second boycott.

Alissa Heinerscheid, the vice president of marketing at Bud Light who oversaw the Mulvaney campaign, took a leave of absence after footage of her criticizing the “fratty” image of the brand circulated online. Elizabeth Hitch, the senior marketing director for Miller Lite, likewise appears to have assumed a prominent role in creating her company’s advertisement.

“Miller Lite wanted to recognize that without women, there would be no beer,” she said in a press release. “To honor this we wanted to acknowledge the missteps in representation of women in beer advertising by cleaning up not just our $#!T, but the whole industry’s $#!T while benefiting the future of women and beer.”