The Most Sinister Commercial Ever?

This gem from Budweiser came out somewhere in the early- to mid-nineties (I remember, because I was dating Earth Mother, and she and I were done by 1996). It's only 30 seconds, please watch.




Now, I remember being immediately fascinated that the ad had gotten on the air, because it was so blatantly sexual as to be almost vulgar. I mean, come on, the "bottle" upended into the "hole" followed by "Do a little dance. Make a little love. Get down tonight." ...not to mention the music causing a rhythmic pulsing around the bottle, moving the earth, even. The intercourse reference could only have been clearer if they had shown the neck of the bottle sliding slightly in and out of the hole in time with the music, and I'm willing to bet that in early cuts of the commercial, the bottle did just that. Could anyone possibly miss it? I remember being flabbergasted when Earth Mother's sister-in-law, RN, confessed plainly that she had "never thought of it that way." Christ, if the commercial had consisted of a guy going to the store to buy some bud, then going home, pounding one, and screwing his girlfriend, it couldn't have been more obvious what the message was.

But the vulgarity of the commercial doesn't stop with its thinly camouflaged sex-act. The real master-stroke is the use of the ants. Can you think of any way that the Establishment could more nakedly mock the Working Class? The ant is the epitome of mindless and tireless work in service of another, in their case, the queen or maybe the colony, and while RN interpreted the commercial as "You work hard; you deserve to let your hair down a little, and Bud can help you do that," it's hard for me to believe that the advertising executives were unaware that the logical extension of that subtext is "You are an indistinguishable peon laboring tirelessly for the benefit of others, but it will help you forget about the emptiness of your lot in life if you buy our beer, get drunk, and fuck."

It takes something special to craft a commercial that is so contemptuous of the demographic at which it's directed and yet still works on that demographic without them being aware of the insult. It's like it was fun for Budweiser to openly taunt its clientele and dare them to even notice, much less care, that they were being derided.

Congratulations Budweiser. This post's for you.

I Woke Up

I dreamt there was something in bed with me...us, my wife and I. It was small. Moving? The bedroom had a drop-ceiling, one of the tiles was gone. The thing in the bed, it occurred to me, was a rat. I kicked it from the bed. The room was very dark; in the ceiling, exposed by the missing tile, there was squirming. More rats. In the ceiling. The bed was alive with them. I didn't find it pleasant and thought it would be a good idea to get out of bed. They went into a frenzy, 6 or 7 biting me at once.

It woke me up.

Self-imposed Hiatus

I'm on one, so that I can concentrate better on that earning a living thing.