Gay Beer?

Gay Beer?

This week I chose to focus on an ad for Bud Light Beer. It was found in Instinct Magazine June/July 2011 issue. The ad displays two young, attractive males smiling in a sensual embrace. They are in a bar and one of them is holding a bottle of Bud Light Beer. Text in the top right corner says “LET’S HEAD OUT. Be who you are. Drink what you like. And turn any time into a great time with the just-right taste of Bud Light. IT’S THE SURE SIGN OF A GOOD TIME. HERE WE GO.” The bottom half of the ad displays three ice-cold Bud Light Beer bottles. In my opinion this ad is designed to imply that it is ok to be gay and that if you consume their product you are going to have a good time.

The first thing that drew my attention when I looked at the ad was two males in a sensual embrace. It was clear to me that the males were more than friends. They were standing very close. One of the men had his arm embracing the other. Their faces were almost touching. Both males were smiling and sharing sensual gazes.

The advertiser having chosen Instinct Magazine almost certainly ensures that the intended audience is mostly gay men. Bud Light Beer has many national advertising campaigns for wider audiences that mainly appeal to heterosexual men this looks to be a campaign narrowly focused towards the gay community, without great fear of a homophobic reaction from their primary consumer.

The first line of the text says “LETS HEAD OUT.” Given the strong anchoring of this ad “LETS HEAD OUT” may be interpreted in at least two important ways. One is “LETS HEAD OUT” of the closet. This interpretation is further supported by the next sentence in the text that says, “Be who you are.” The second interpretation of the first line of text is “LETS HEAD OUT” of here. This could imply that the two males want to go somewhere else perhaps to be alone. The text further implies that the consumption of Bud Light will lead to a good time “Drink what you like. And turn any time into a great time with the just-right taste of Bud Light. IT’S THE SURE SIGN OF A GOOD TIME. HERE WE GO.”  When viewing the images in a known “gay” magazine and reading the text the homosexual anchoring of this ad is almost indisputable.

Kim NAME did a study focusing on heterosexual scripts on TV. One of her main coding categories was "Male-Oriented Homophobia" (MOH) (Kim 2007). In this script men try to avoid behaviors that could be seen or interpreted as homosexual (KIM). By looking at this Bud Light Beer advertisement through the MOH frame, this example runs counter to gendered expectations. 

The people at Bud Light believe that they have a product that will make times more enjoyable for openly gay males. I could anticipate the reaction of most gay men as a conformation that openly gay relationships are acceptable in society. It occurs to me however that some gay men may view the ad as pandering and would recognize that this endorsement of a gay life is not a recurring theme in any national Bud Light campaign. It is disappointing to see that this ad is only being run in an openly gay magazine. Bud Light may be afraid that their main consumers, heterosexual males, would be turned off or offended by this open display of homosexuality, a clear display of (MOH) (Kim 2007). This makes me wonder if Bud Light is really embracing an openly gay community or if they are simply trying to sell a product to a targeted audience in a private way. In this way the ad is both supported and countering the (MOH) script (Kim 2007). 

Citations

Kim, J. L., Lynn Sorsoli, C., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research, 44(2), 145-157.