Bud Light Gets Back to Basics After Culture Wars Backlash

Bud Light has made a return to vying for laughs with its new ad campaign series featuring standup comedian Shane Gillis.

The beer brand became the focus of one of 2023’s biggest culture wars when it partnered with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a small campaign. Bud Light gifted Mulvaney personalized, not-for-sale cans of beer with her face on them to commemorate her 365 days of living as a woman. Mulvaney’s “Days of Girlhood” video series, which documented her transition, was a viral success.

After Mulvaney shared a video with the Bud Light product on April 1 last year, the condemnation came thick and fast from conservative figures, including Representative Dan Crenshaw, with many issuing calls for a boycott of Bud Light. Musician Kid Rock reacted by sharing footage of himself firing an assault rifle at a stack of Bud Light cans. He would later soften his stance, much to the chagrin of detractors.

While it seemed that the backlash would never let up, the Anheuser-Busch InBev brand has now won positive reviews online after the unveiling of its new ads starring Gillis, the first of which debuted in time to mark the start of the college football season.

In the first ad, called “The Dean’s Office,” a nervous student is seen sitting before three staff members as he’s accused of plagiarizing his master’s thesis. However, the dean tells the student that if he confesses he will get a bucket of ice-cold Bud Light beers.

Tempted by the offer, a sports coach played by Gillis confesses that he practices his halftime speeches in the shower before games. He cracks open a bottle before offering up Professor Wilkins (played by Gillis collaborator Steve Gerben). When the professor says he has nothing to share, the sports coach shares an embarrassing tidbit at his colleague’s expense so they both have beers.

Another colleague walks into the previously tense meeting. Upon learning from the coach that all he has to do is make a confession to get one of the beers, he reveals that he has been using a fake British accent to order pizza.

With one beer left in the bucket, the student in question is on the verge of confessing that he did cheat before the dean cuts in to say that he’s “afraid of horses” and takes the final bottle. The student is sent away without punishment as the staffers enjoy their beers together.

Noah Sanborn Friedman, who invests in alcohol brands, shared a clip of the ad on X (formerly Twitter) along with a caption: “This is likely the first of many Bud Light commercials we’ll see with Shane through the rest of football season. Old school beer ads are back! I have a feeling Bud Light is about to have a huge year.”

The post, which has garnered more than 4.5 million views, drew reactions from X users, one of whom wrote: “Make beer commercials great again!!!”

Another said: “Oh wow funny beer commercials are back? Society is self correcting.”

“Brilliant. And a hell of a way to shake the past year and a half for Bud Light,” another X user weighed in.

However, several others said their boycott of the beer remains, with one writing, “As for me and my house, we’ll still never drink another Bud Light again.”

The new Bud Light ad comes as such high-profile men as vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce have been named as the faces of a new positive masculinity.

Many know the term “toxic masculinity” and think of the overly dominant, often aggressive personality that shapes the discourse about this behavior. But now there’s talk of a softer kind of masculinity that features a more open display of emotions and support for issues not necessarily associated with men.

The term “positive masculinity” is thought to have been co-created in the early 2000s by Matt Englar-Carlson, founder and director of the Center for Boys and Men at California State University, Fullerton. He told Newsweek that the idea “creates space to realize that there’s multiple ways to be a man.”

Toxic masculinity can compel boys and men to behave in a certain way and conform to certain stereotypes. But Englar-Carlson says positive masculinity is about liberating them from “that straitjacket” and allowing them to express themselves however they want.

As a white, heterosexual male who served in the military, taught high school, coached football and spends his spare time hunting, Walz might not seem like the epitome of positive masculinity. But he isn’t solely defined by these characteristics because he’s also a family man, an advocate for women’s rights and a champion of women in power.

Englar-Carlson, a professor and department chair at California State University, Fullerton’s Department of Counseling, said that Walz “checkmarks” a lot of the traits that people think are representative of masculinity, yet he also speaks to a more enlightened “archetype of men.”

Meanwhile, as an NFL star, there’s no doubt that Kelce is physically powerful and “embodies the traditional male protector role,” John Barry, a psychologist and co-founder of the U.K.’s Center for Male Psychology, told Newsweek.

He’s also not reluctant to show a softer side by appearing at girlfriend Taylor Swift‘s concerts, dancing to every song and wearing friendship bracelets. He even appeared onstage this summer with her in London, where he gladly took on the role of backing dancer while she ran the show.