The Super Bowl, an expensive sporting event in which two large groups of men play a game between blocks of commercials, approaches. That means we’re about to start seeing a lot of high-profile advertisements made by or featuring big, notable names not commonly associated with 30-second spots. Cheetos has already released a teaser for its big at-bat—yes, a teaser for an advertisement—which serves as an origin story for MC Hammer’s biggest hit. Squarespace will run an ad starring Winona Ryder. And Planters straight-up murdered Mr. Peanut.
Now Budweiser, of galloping horses and “wassaaap” fame, has released one of what will probably be several ads from Anheuser-Busch InBev. It’s directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow, the only woman to ever win an Academy Award for directing. And it’s… this?
Patriotic Budweiser commercials are nothing new. Snarky Budweiser commercials are nothing new. A snarky patriotic Budweiser commercial seems kind of new. The 60-second spot, title “Typical Americans,” features inspiring acts from, yes, “typical” Americans. As produced by agency David Miami, the ad juxtaposes these extraordinary moments—some big, some intimate—with a sardonic voiceover that lists off stereotypes about Americans (some of them kind of weird: Are we known for constantly taking our clothes off in public?) The idea is to debunk those stereotypes—it’s a whole #NotAllAmericans kind of thing, up to and including a shot of the Free Hugs Guy (activist Ken E. Nwadike, Jr.) hugging a cop in riot gear.
Monica Rustgi, Budweiser’s vice president of marketing, explained the ad’s aims to Adweek:
2020 is a year where we have the Olympics ahead of us, and the elections ahead of us, and so we wanted to invigorate everyone to come together [and] realize their potential as Americans, all while enjoying a refreshing, cool Bud.
In addition to Nwadike, the ad features World Cup champs Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris; marathon runner Hannah Gavios, who in 2019 completed her second New York City marathon since she fell off a cliff while running from an attacker, a fall which left her partially paralyzed; a firefighter; two people who went out of their way to help someone else, one on a snowy road, one on a train car, and others. They are all admirable acts! Kathryn Bigelow is a good director! The spot is a 60-second ad for Budweiser that basically implies that Americans are Bud-drinking heroes and all those mean old foreigners just don’t know us very well!
Who knows, your mileage may vary. (Adweek called it a “patriotic tearjerker.”) But we’d rather have the horses.
Kathryn Bigelow, go ahead and cash that check. You deserve to make a self-satisfied Super Bowl commercial every once in a while. Cash it, buy yourself a margarita or something, and we’ll pretend this never happened.
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27 Comments
I’ll be honest, I liked it. I’ll take a self-aware ad like this over Sam Elliot reciting Old Town Road. This makes me cringe a lot less.
A cheap pisswater made by mercenary brazilians via a belgian company, bought from a moron rich heir suspected of killing a cop. Is that very American or very un-American, I can’t tell. It’s as American as falsely portraying torture as an effective interrogation method, at least.
Budweiser Boarding, The King of Torture?
Yeah as far as beloved directors’ shameful missteps go, making a one minute ad for a beer company is way down the scale from being a dancing monkey for the CIA.
she’s just burnishing her resume at this point. Honestly, nobody took “24″ as gospel with the perennially ticking clock. But when Bigelow falsely showed in Zero Dark Thirty that torture produced information leading to bin Laden, a decent chunk of the american public thought she was reporting the truth.
Wow, people still think ZDT was promoting torture?
People have trouble seeing anything beyond the most superficial meanings.
Again, it showed torture leading to actionable intelligence that was in fact derived in a completely different way. That’s promoting torture.
I think you mentioned two separate ideas that don’t necessarily connect the way you think they do.
24 and ZDT both posit that torture works and results in actionable intelligence…what the universe responds is: nope. But the guy who ran 24 was a W supporter who wanted to promote torture in line with the administration.
I dunno man…I’d still say this isn’t something to be proud of. Like, is she really that desperate for work? Like, is she really that desperate for work?
Not to mention its actually quite bad.
Definitely very American!
Gonna need a source for the suspected of killing a cop thing. August Busch IV has been in a lot of trouble in his life but can’t find anything about killing a cop?
Sorry, trying to run over two police officers, among other things. It’s on his wikipedia page, have fun with basic google.
Schill chilled swill
Cash it, buy yourself a margarita or something, and we’ll pretend this never happened.Can we pretend her absolutely shite movies never happened too?
Big deal. She’s an interesting filmmaker who makes films that are not in lockstep with your simplistic political dogma. Let her have a nice paycheck. I don’t agree with a lot of positions that are attributed to her either but I’m not going to see everything she does through some “tsk tsk” filter.
You probably would have loved it if it featured a flag burning
Meh
Yeah, ok. But I want more with the Clydesdales and that cute dog!
The cute dog, yes. The SAD dog? Oh, hell no.
This ad could be nothing but a minute straight of Clydesdales running along a snowy path in Nebraska or wherever the fuck looks the most patriotic with that song playing in the background and I’d be fine with it. I dunno who came up with the idea of high-concept beer commercials, but they should be shot into the sun. No, I’m sorry, Mr. Scorsese, I have no interest in watching your Doritos ad. I’m too busy painting my stomach blue and jamming jalapeno poppers into my filthy goddamn gob.America is so fucking stupid when it’s trying to be smart.
The ad only has 2 “aims:”Get people to talk about Budweiser.Get people to buy Budweiser.So it has already accomplished half of that.
Objection: “Typical Americans” don’t really go out to the streets in political protests. At least much less than other countries’ people seem to. We’ve done it more often under Trump, but even that’s been low compared to what he actually deserves. And something like 90 million people didn’t vote when he was on the ballot in 2016. I wish Americans cared much more about “saving the world.”
That was fine. But can I have my James Cameron Miller Lite ad now?
She made Near Dark, so she can cash a check from anyone short of a human trafficker or murder as far as I’m concerned.
As an Australian, I wouldn’t say that “taking off your clothes in public” is top of the stereotype list, but I do kind of think of it as something you do. Especially at sporting events.