The controversy is about so much more than an American mediocre canned beer – it’s about identity politics
The American musician Kid Rock has posted a video that has been viewed by more than ten million people. In the video, he wears a MAGA cap with a semi-automatic weapon and shoots down Bud Light beer cans. Afterwards, he looks into the camera and hurls f-bombs at the viewers.
What is he so angry about? And what has made others on social platforms post videos where they destroy America’s best-selling beer?
It is, yet again, identity politics that is at the center. Bud Light is primarily enjoyed by people who crack open a beer after a long day at work and college students – people for whom the price of a beer means something.
The controversy is about the trans activist Dylan Mulvaney, who received a specially designed Bud Light can with her portrait on it at her one-year transition day.
Dylan Mulvaney has an extensive platform with ten million subscribers and more than a billion clicks on her videos. She is an actor and comedian and has documented her transition on social platforms. Additionally, she went to the White House to visit Joe Biden and talk about the legislation that has been introduced in some Republican states to limit the rights of transgender people.
Hence, the controversy is about much more than a mediocre cheap canned beer. It is about the American soul – and there is a vast difference in how that should be defined, depending on which side of the political spectrum one belongs to.
In this column, I am not addressing whether kids should be able to transition or which bathroom they can use – I am addressing the fact that adults should be allowed to be who they are. And in some states, transgender people are the target of legislation designed to limit their rights. Laws have been introduced to limit the access to medical care for trans people, changes have been made to change the ability to perform drag shows, and a whole host of other blitheringly hateful measures have made their way into legislation.
In recent years, there has been a great deal of focus on minorities and particularly vulnerable people. There was and is a need to put one’s own privilege and ‘blindness’ under the microscope. That is healthy and good for everyone. But, as with so much else in this country, certain elements have taken what could be a healthy debate to extremes – on both sides of the political aisle. In some schools caucasian children are taught that because of their skin color they are racist, in other schools they are not allowed to learn about other sexualities than heterosexualism. It should not come as a surprise that our kids are confused when even the adults cannot deal constructively with important subjects like these. Recess fights does not only take place in the schoolyard.
So now beer has become part of the WOKE war. Right-wingers boycott Bud Light under the slogan “go woke, go broke”. In the LGBTQIA+-community, Bud Light has been popular for decades, primarily as a response to another beer brand’s discriminatory hiring practices.
But there is hope. Nothing could be better for Bud Light than the massive attention they get these days. It’s win-win: while Anheuser-Bush is laughing all the way to the bank, the LGBTQIA+-community has received worldwide attention all over the world.
Ølreklame får amerikanere op i det regnbuefarvede felt
Det handler om mere end middelmådig dåseøl – det handler om identitetspolitik
Danish-American Eyes on Society 