A friend of my late father’s died recently at 90 or so, and in the course of mourning and its attendant nostalgia his surviving family discovered an old comradely picture of him hanging out with my Dad during their college years. I had never before seen a shot where Dad had longer hair circa 1950 than I ever wore in the 1970s, a time when I thought I was showing him cocky rebellion. So much for me teaching him about life. Apparently, he knew a thing or two before I arrived on the scene.
My own children have been much kinder to me, never treating me like old beer that has lost its head or even like old news that has lost its headline.
Which brings us to Miller Brewing Company and its public repudiation of past sins. Apparently, this business of selling beer by showing women in swimsuits is for them an embarrassing memory. They have actually invited people to sell them back copies of such print ads, so they can shred them, even turn them into fertilizer.
The truth is that I was the kind of customer that always looked down on this kind of ad. Why are the naked women in this picture? Are we telling the middle-class man that drinking beer will make him so glib, so gabby, so charming that women who look like TV models will come running to enjoy his company? It is, at best, a weird kind of fantasy, leading us to question the intelligence of men, and a belittling of women’s self-respect and good judgment, leading us to question the intelligence of women.
That said, is this new public penance encouraging us to fly new pennants of reverence for intellect, discernment, analysis, dignity, meditation and deep thinking in general? And if so, what’s that got to do with beer? I know that fictional detective Nero Wolfe used beer to stimulate his solving of murder mysteries, but the rest of us have learned through experience that beer dulls but does not sharpen anything. Not our eyes, not our ears, not our noses and certainly not our thoughts and expressions.
So either you are too engaged a meditator all 24 hours of the day, and beer is not an option for you no matter what the ad shows. Or you are closer to the norm, and your many hours of hard work and keen thought leave you in need of some dulling, some shallowing, some coasting, some relaxing.
My message to the millers of Miller and to the buddies of Bud is to recognize the good in your goods and the service in your services… and what your ad should add. Your job is to be the voice of my leisure, not the voice of my conscience. We barely notice the barley taste as it goes down, but we welcome the calm that comes after. It gives us a chance to take a break from annoying, picayune, naggy types like — apparently — you!
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Try UFO beers.
As a normal male scantily-clad beautiful ladies stand a much better chance of selling me a product than those who are fully-clothed and ugly. Being beautiful is not an insult to women who aren’t, just as being intelligent is not an insult to those who are dumb. Pure jealousy is not attractive under any circumstances and should never be considered a virtue. Enough with the virtue signaling.