It's really just creepy... especially the extra set of metal arms that pop out of her to set up the keg.

I saw this ad the other night on tv and wondered who came up with the concept of the keg-producing robot woman. A man, I'm quite sure.

Like I've said on numerous other sites, this is obviously a tribute to Fritz Lang's unreleased sequel, Metropolis II: All-Nite Kegger Party.

Who's the target market for this ad? Really, really misogynistic futurists?

How much beer does Heineken think Newt Gingrich is going to buy?

norbizness - you made me snarf my coffee.

This ad is, obviously, gross. But it's an ad for a gross beer. I'm real sorry that you don't like beer, since it's actually got a pretty interesting history in this country (among others). People who make local tasty beer (like Bells in Michigan, Victory in PA, Stone in San Diego) are on the forefront of the "buy local" movement. Next time you're at a (good) bar or restaurant, ask the server for some local beer. Let them know you're a novice - but DON'T take their first offering of freaking Lambic - the "chick" beer (it's flavored with berries and fruit). Try a nice malty Belgian style. Once you get a taste for authentic beer, you'll probably like the hoppier, deeper beers. Then, you can move on to that king of beers (no, don't gross Bud), the Barley Wine.

Sorry, I just really love beer.

Me, on the other hand...I like beer. But this has to be the creepiest ad on television.

I normally don't pay much attention to commercials, but when this one came on the other night I stopped dead in my tracks and just ... stared at it. What a freaky, horrible, misogynistic commercial.

beer happens to be one of my best friends but damn do I ever hate her commercials. I have the pleasure of not being able to view this add right now on my shitty office PC but I can only guess from the description that it's as bad or worse than nearly all beer commercials.

What I find strange is I never see beer marketed to women. (not that i mind or care) but its annoying when they have crappy spirits like arbour mists that are always directly marketed to women, especially when I don't know a single women who would drink that shite. You know the typical "girly" drink commercials with the women reclining from all that house cleaning... so stupid. We either get commercials where men see us lift up our shirts while they drink beer, or girly drinks after a long hard day cleaning the house...?

VISION OF THE FUTURE:

In the future, women's purpose will be to serve beer to men.

Except in the future, they won't need to go all the way to the fridge. The beer will be conveniently stored in their stomach.

A new social debate will emerge: Pro-choice vs. Pro-beer. The pro-beer zealots will insist that women have no right to abort the precious beer.

The pro-beer zealots will insist that women have no right to abort the precious beer.

Dammit, I can be both pro-choice and pro-beer!

Samhita, do we really need to take potshots at beer AND battlestar galactica this early in the week? What else do I have to live for? :0)

I hate most beer commercials. This one is as bad as the Miller Light commercial that aired 3 years ago...where two guys got boners off the two girls who were fist fighting and making out. The only difference between this beer commercial and the Miller Light commercial is that this one is a little more stealthy about its misogynistic message.

Do beer companies not realize that half of their customers are probably women? I don't understand why they make such offensive commercials. I swear, all beer companies must use the same marketing team...

Yep, and this commercial is supposed to appeal to women too. Because it is, after all, all about the menz. If you drink this beer, it shows that you are willing to put up with this shit, and maybe a little of the sexxxay robotness will rub off on you. Hooray, instant approval from men! Just what you always wanted.

Oh I'm glad someone here is commenting on this ad; it's been bothering me for a few weeks now. Not only is it creepy, it doesn't even make sense. How am I supposed to have room for a beer keg, extra robot arms, and two other versions of myself and still maintain my size 0 figure?!? It's so ridiculous it's almost unworthy of worrying about, and yet it still sets my teeth on edge.

I'm usually pretty aware of feminist issues (for a dude), but I didn't see this commercial as misogynistic at all. It's not a woman, it's a robot, like Bender on Futurama, who's always taking things out of his belly. I can see the objections now that you point them out, but they weren't at all obvious to me.

PUPMD: "Samhita, do we really need to take potshots at beer AND battlestar galactica this early in the week? What else do I have to live for? :0)"

Whose dissing BSG? Where?

What's wrong with the world? Best show ever!

http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

I guess women should be flattered because the notion is "the only thing better than a woman is a woman with an on-board keg and... extra arms?"

I don't like beer, but you know what I dislike even more than beer? Getting that list of 180,000 beers I should try that maybe I'll like when I tell someone I DON'T LIKE BEER.

Heineken is okay when all you have to drink is light beer. I prefer stouts myself. Murphy's particularly, but its hard to find in the states. Local/microbrews are usually better, its true. Incidentally, I tried my first 'infused' beer the other day, and it tasted like perfume. Very weird.

I don't really watch TV. My boyfriend does, so I'll have to ask him. Noneless, that is a freaky freaky add. Do men really want stepford wives?

This is reminiscent of the 'girly-drink' thread (or something) from a couple of weeks ago. From what I can tell very little alcohol is marketed directly for women. If it was, I"m sure it would be pink.

"...I didn't see this commercial as misogynistic at all. It's not a woman, it's a robot, like Bender on Futurama, who's always taking things out of his belly."

I actually agree. It's probably the least offensive beer commercial I've seen in a while.

Jmilles,

True, it's a robot. But it's funny how much it looks like a woman, isn't it? If it was 'just a robot' then why does it look so much more like Marilyn Monroe than R2D2? You can't even begin to say that this robot was without a gender.

I have to admit that I did think there was something catchy, unique, and artistic about this ad that held my attention. But that doesn't mean it wasn't also pretty misogynist, because like most/all beer commercials, it emphasized objectification of women and their complete subjugation to the whims of men. What or who this robot is or wants is irrelevant: she's a provider, not a being.

Randomly:

http://tastybooze.com/2007/08/easiest-opening-beer-can-ever/

Dorion: the trouble is that many people think "beer" means "lager", and when they find they don't like lager they conclude that they don't like beer. I have known people who don't like lager or bitter or stout but find they have quite a taste for brown ale. This isn't to say that *you* think that beer equals lager, but it's a common mistake and understandable that people might assume that others were making it.

The robot is clearly designed to look like a woman in order to play into the stereotype that the primary female role is to be a server/hostess, both in the household and out. That is why it's misogyny.

Also, beer rocks.

i'm kind of surprised that given the imagery of the perfect woman being sexy and a server/hostess...that they didn't make the top of her head flat and make her toothless and short...

...based on one of many vile jokes on the 'perfect' woman...

That commercial makes me sick too. Thanks for posting about it.

I looked for this ad on You Tube yesterday so I could write a post on it, and I couldn't find it!

I see a lot of beer commercials, including this one, over and over again during Mets games. I really can't stand it. I don't think I've ever seen a beer commercial that I've liked, and I have to see 2-3 beer ads after every half inning every game for 162 games during the regular season. Fans are inundated with literally thousands of these ads just by watching baseball's 6-month long regular season. It disgusts me. Nobody should have to be subjected to this misogynistic bullshit while trying to enjoy a baseball game. And nobody can tell me that the majority of sports fans are male. We watch plenty of sports on TV, and we fill the stadiums and buy the merch. And even if the majority of the audience was male, that's really no excuse.

I hesitate to call it purely misogynistic. Misogyny is a hatred of women. This ad isn't hateful; to me it's merely insensitive.

Here's the other beer commercial I hate. Not the only other, of course, but it's still played all the time on TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUb9AOY_RdQ

Actually, always answer b, misogyny is defined as hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.

While I dislike the whole "perfect woman=fembot beer hostess" thing, I think that words like "gutted" are hyperbolic here. If she's a robot, the beer keg would have been built in. No vital organs would have been removed.

Unsurprisingly (with my username) I actually do have the "cyborg woman" (or man, or other) fetish. And I am a feminist woman. I don't see it as necessarily being a negative thing, or a degrading thing.

I didn't see this commercial as being at all worse than any other beer commercial. And good point ShifterCat, she'd hardly be "gutted" if a robot.

But this is just my two beer-loving, robot-wannabe cents.

Um...ok, this is mildly offensive, just like 90% of beer commercials. But I've certainly seen worse.

Oh THANK YOU! I hate this commercial it creeps me out! The whole fem-bot thing and...what are they trying to say? I don't get it, I don't like it, it makes me uncomfortable...I actually change the channel when it comes on.

I also don't like beer.

One could argue that this commercial is actually less misogynistic, or at least less phallocentric and heteronormative, than most. The fembot is not the typically busty, long-haired, come-hither bimbo you usually see in beer ads. It/she is, rather, somewhat androgynous, cold, and distant, even with the robotic smile. Neither does it/she display the hip-shaking body language usually associated with beer commercials. The significant camp element seems to me to undercut the traditional message.

"A new social debate will emerge: Pro-choice vs. Pro-beer. The pro-beer zealots will insist that women have no right to abort the precious beer."

Don't laugh, there have been no fewer than 6 Official Pro-Beer political parties in the following countries:

Belarus - Beer Lovers' Party

Canada - Prince Edward Island Draft Beer Party

Germany - German Beer-Drinkers Union

Norway - Beer Unity Party

Poland - Polish Beer-Lovers' Party

Russia - Beer Lovers Party

The Beer Lovers are organizing, and no animatronic women are safe...

Sarah MC -
I guess it depends on the dictionary. I just consulted one to be sure that I don't look like an idiot and it simply stated "hatred."

Even so, I still don't really associate the other terms you listed (dislike or mistrust) with this commercial. Is it offensive? Sure, it could certainly be offensive. I just still fail to see the hatred (or dislike and mistrust, for that matter) of women.

FEMily- I hear you- as a sports fan and , yes, especially a Mets fan, having to sit through all these beer-and car- commercials annoys me no end. Of course many adverts are manipulative and condescending but beer commercials take the prize IMO with their extreme gender stereotyping. Why do marketers think consumers need to be presented with such a polarized and reductive gender world view in order to consider enjoying beer? I don't enjoy beer, personally, and
i certainly don't enjoy the condescension and outright
misogyny used to market it.

THANK YOU!

When I go to visit my family, I'm often away from the internet and can't escape the TV for days. In this state, I begin to question all of my most basic assumptions. Last time I was at home, I found myself very creeped out by this ad and wondered if anybody else thought it was icky. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I was wondering when I'd see a response to this... I've been seeing this commercial for a couple weeks and thought it was creepy as hell. The whole robot-woman that serves beer and can self-multiply when the need for some group sex comes up (or maybe just one to hold the beer, the second to peel and feed him the grapes, and the third to wave the big fan...), and she's a robot so obviously programmed not to think or talk back. But then, I suppose I'm reading to much into it... I mean, obviously it's not supposed to be real... She's green!

Ugh. And you know, it could actually have been all right, if she'd been a little less overtly sexbot and, at the end, instead of robotically serving it up to her master, she had started glugging away herself.

But that would have required creativity on the part of advertisers, and reaching for the same tired tropes is so much easier. Yawn. Puke.

I saw this commercial for the first time last night. Just another example of how women are portrayed as non-living objects in advertisement. This one was probably the most obvious depiction I have seen in awhile.

That add is very sexist (not to mention pretty fucking bizarre - beer served from the abdomen of a disemboweled cyborg?)

As for liking beer - to each his/her own. I'm a beer fan, but not everbody likes the taste.

suissesse, sorry, I'm just not into the fancy pretentious yuppie beers!

Just give me a good old fashioned 12 oz bottle of budweiser - traditional, American, union-made beer, none of that fancy hipster "gourmet beer" for me!

FEMily!, what's so terrible about this ad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUb9AOY_RdQ

She's happy because her pregancy test came out blue (meaning she's pregnant) and he's happy because the Coors Light bottle turned blue (meaning it's cooled to the perfect temprature)

The joke is, this couple have VERY different goals in life - and they suddenly discover that fact in that moment by the fridge.

Doesn't really seem that sexist to me...

Good call! By coincidence, I happened to see this ad for the first time just a couple of hours ago - I was like, "What the fuck?"

Sadly, though, I think I understand exactly what's going on with it. It plays off a certain kind of minor-chord theme attached to the "women as mindless servants" stereotype. Women are most appealing to misogynist men when they provide the things that make men happy, and least appealing when they are self-actuated and have their own lives and interests; one way to create the "ideal woman" is to make the woman a mere pleasure dispenser. The woman-as-cyborg-servant meme instantiates the general misogynist desire to have women serve men's needs; the woman-as-vending-machine variation literalizes that, with the thing being vended serving as a metaphor for sexual services, and as a literal instance of providing a desired commodity.

In the Heineken commercial, a sexily-dressed woman's abdominal region opens up and she dispenses beer from where her uterus would be (while her breasts are still visible); she then grows extra arms and bodies that flip between sexy costuming and beer dispensing while the women posture and dance as in a striptease - none of the women ever speaks a word during this display. An almost exact parallel is the scene in the remake version of "Stepford Wives", in which the new guy (Matthew Broderick) first learns that his neighbor's wife is a cyborg: her husband calls her and commands her to pay Broderick $20 that he owes him; the woman goes into "cyborg" mode, opens her mouth wide, and dollar bills stick out like she's an ATM - she gives it to him orally, again without saying a word. I trust the symbolism is clear enough?

Oh come on Gregory. The Heinekin commercial is perpetuating stereotypes that constrain both the male and female character, except the commercial is ultimately about the beer, not about fertility drugs. The silly woman has the wrong priorities, is the message of that ad.

Yes, many couples have very different goals and desires in life, but it's funny how in the media acceptable women only have goals related to providing for their family or looking beautiful. Neither of those are goals of mine, but it seems they might be the goals imposed by a male society that wants me to provide for them and look appealing meanwhile too.

How can I not observe a commercial like that and be annoyed at the way women are represented?

GREGORY, the thing that especially bothers me about that ad is the fact that he didn't even know why color her eyes were, even though he got her pregnant. You'd think he would have been close enough to her face to notice her eye color.

In a moment of pop culture irony, the last time this commercial was on, it was immediately followed by an ad for Vagasil. Makes sense...all that barley and hops...

And nobody can tell me that the majority of sports fans are male. - FEMily

Not that it matters much, but the majority of sports fans are male (at least in the US they are).

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=15421&pg=2

Ok, I must have seriously had a brain fart sending this ad to you after you already published a post about it. Gawd I feel stupid. I just went back to college and my brain is already mush...is that a good excuse??

Sorry.... :)

Um, physical attractiveness is the first female attribute that men notice, and in my mind nothing for women to be ashamed of. You should embrace your looks or "lack of" rather than brainwashing everyone to ignore them.
The robot commercial is aimed at guys...gives us our two favorite things...a hot chick who can chill and pour us a beer. BooYah!!!!!

Um, physical attractiveness is the first female attribute that men notice, and in my mind nothing for women to be ashamed of. You should embrace your looks or "lack of" rather than brainwashing everyone to ignore them.
The robot commercial is aimed at guys...gives us our two favorite things...a hot chick who can chill and pour us a beer. BooYah!!!!!

Um, physical attractiveness is the first female attribute that men notice, and in my mind nothing for women to be ashamed of. You should embrace your looks or "lack of" rather than brainwashing everyone to ignore them.
The robot commercial is aimed at guys...gives us our two favorite things...a hot chick who can chill and pour us a beer. BooYah!!!!!

Wow, MasterJeff, you're an ass. Thanks for the warning.

Yeah, we should "embrace" our looks as long as we're white, blonde, young, thin, large breasted and not disabled. And then, for the few of us who do measure up to your fascist beauty standards, you'll accuse us of being bimbos and getting to where we are because of our looks. Suddenly your analysis doesn't sound so empowering. Go back to your KKK meetings, Jeff, where you and your cronies can continue to talk about ways to create a world where people can experience heaps 'o unearned privilege.