I'll add that they're also referring to women as "things." Stay classy, Bud Light.

I. Don't. Get. How. They. Get. Away. With. This. Stuff.

Where are the bells ringing, "Gee, we're promoting the sexual manipulation of binge-drinking women, maybe this is, you know, inappropriate?" Where are they? Seriously? Shouldn't this kind of advertising be illegal or something? Most liquor and beer companies have disclaimers saying "Remember to drink responsibly." Doesn't this refute that?

It says "for people," not "for men."

Women don't like beer? Men can't be easy? It might be lame but I don't think it's sexist.

Is the ad misogynistic? Yes.

Does it "promote rape?" Doubtful. If the definition of rape includes "having sex while intoxicated," the majority of college students are rapists.

Feeling a little lost here. Can somebody explain how that poster promotes rape? I don't get it.

It does say "people"...

@Californienne:

Tots, b/c the word "easy" gets applied to men way more often than it gets applied to women, and there is a serious societal problem with women taking advantage of drunk men which is simply not mirrored in the behavior of men to women.

As to whether this ad is aimed at men or women...seriously. Beer ads are aimed at men. I don't think it's very controversial of me to assert that.

Autodidact, promoting the idea that men need to ply women with alcohol in order to manipulate them into having sex is extremely problematic for many feminists. And yes, this ad is very clearly playing on that social cue.

@ FrumiousB:
Gee Whiz. Golly. Thanks for enlightening me.

Seriously, as a woman, and a beer drinker I get it. I really do. Maybe I'm just speaking from a place of privilege, never having anything but positive drunken hookup experiences, but to go from this ad to rape strikes me as a knee-jerk overreaction.

I'm pretty sure the picture in the circle shows a guy-probably winking and smirking, so I think we can say that yeah, it's directed at men, and is telling them that having sex with women too drunk to consent is a-ok!

Yeah, don't confuse "slutty" with "rape."

Not to use slutty pejoratively, I myself am a proud slut if the mood hits.

But it's saying "easy," not "blacked out drunk."

It's a stupid sign, but it really downplays the importance of rape to say that sign is suggesting anything other than "people" boning drunk, slutty "people." (Although from context, they for sure meant women.)

It seems clear to me that they are intentionally being vague, while implying a terrible message (buy this beer to get girls drunk to have sex with you). By being vague they wash their hands of the very message.

It seems clear to me that they are intentionally being vague, while implying a terrible message (buy this beer to get girls drunk to have sex with you). By being vague they wash their hands of the very message.

It seems clear to me that they are intentionally being vague, while implying a terrible message (buy this beer to get girls drunk to have sex with you). By being vague they wash their hands of the very message.

Thanks, Magular. That's what I was getting at more or less.

Sorry, no. The rape-on-the-brain interpretation just doesn't fly. It's too paranoid.

Yeah, I agree, it's not about rape. People drink to lower their inhibitions, and one thing a lot of women actually *seek* to do by drinking is lower their inhibitions about sex so they can have sex without the voice in the back of their head telling them that they're dirty sluts. Women actually drink *to* get laid more easily. (Men do the same; the inhibition they're trying to get rid of is the fear that if they ask a woman out she'll reject them or laugh at them.)

If patriarchy didn't exist, alcohol would be a lot less *necessary* for people to have sex, but since it does, it's going to be easier for women who are drinking to agree to have sex they would want but be too afraid of being thought slutty to agree to if they were sober. There's no implication in this ad that the women should be unconscious or even that the men should ply them with alcohol; I take "easy" and "drinking" to mean "the woman is drinking, on her own, which means she will more easily consent to sex." It doesn't say easy and *drunk*. Drinking implies that the woman is drinking when the man meets up with her, and if she's still taking drinks then she's not semi-conscious or physically immobile.

It is unpleasant that "easy" means slutty and there is social opprobrium for women who want to have sex. It bothers *me* a lot that so many women choose to drink in order to free themselves to have sex, because the inhibitions of the patriarchy are too strong when they're sober. And "easy drinking things" is a pretty disgusting thing to describe a human as. But I don't see any suggestion of rape or even manipulation here; I see a suggestion that women who are drinking when men meet them will be easier for the men to have sex with, because of the reality that drinking lowers inhibitions. It's more an implication that men don't have to work to get sex from women who drink, not that men can easily rape them.

my interpretation of the "Easy" is a jab at the stupidity of (predominantly) male beer drinkers... i think we're overanalyzing here

This ad is suggesting that it's a good idea to have sex with people when they're drunk, because a drunk person who wouldn't necessarily have sex with you when they were sober might consent to sex with you while they are drunk.

What some of you guys are missing is that drunk people are not capable of meaningful consent. Therefore, this ad is encouraging the kind of thinking that results in rape.

The target audience of the ad was clearly men, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether or not it said "people" or "women" because rape is always bad. Rape is antifeminist, and I don't care who is raping whom.

End of story.

At least it's not as bad as the Miller Light GHT advertisement from a few years ago.

I think there's some conflation here of intent with effect. I'm sure the advertisers weren't thinking 'Hey, you know what would be awesome? If we promoted our product as a tool for date rapists!' But just because that isn't what the advertisers meant, it doesn't mean that the effect isn't there.

The discussion of whether or not this ad directly promotes or invokes rate is kind of missing the point. Certainly, women can be "drinking" and "easy" and also consent to sex, as some commenters have pointed out. The problem is not that the ad is directly advocating rape, but that it is advocating a sexual strategy that consists of preying on inebriated women. This strategy, while it does not always lead to rape, certainly sometimes does.

The ad does not specify the ideal level of inebriation of the "easy" "drinking" woman. We all get that it is illegal to seek out partners so impaired that they cannot consent to sex and legal to to seek out women who are slightly drunk as sex partners. One situation is rape and the other is manipulative, dangerous, and sleazy. Both are part of rape culture. The link between this ad and rape is not direct, but it IS there.

Not safe for work.
What all beer commercials are really saying:

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

well said, frances

Rape? Really? Samhita, you are way off the mark here. Don't confuse the term "easy" with "unable to consent." There's a world of difference in between the two. This ad doesn't even come close to stepping over that line of promoting rape.

Is it sexist? Yes. It refers to women as "things" and it implies that women only want to have sex while drunk. Does is imply that rape is the way to have sex? No! I think what you are going for here is, "Bud Light supports situations that may lead to rape." Not quite as punchy a headline though, is it? And really, I support a lot of situations that may lead to rape if you define that as any place where women are drunk and are open to sex.

It seems that they are trying for the date-rape "humor" that's been very visible lately... I can see how this can be interpreted either way, honestly.

Sex sells. If they use sex to sell shampoo you know they are going to use sex to sell alcohol. The problem is the two have a bad history together.

To those of you who are commenting that "easy" doesn't necessarily mean slutty or unable to consent: You're right, it doesn't, at least not grammatically. BUT--and this is a very important caveat--accusing someone of being "easy" has historically been used to discredit women who are attacked and raped and who try to prosecute their attackers. So has the fact that the woman was drinking. Both drinking and past sexual history continue to factor into decisions made by judges (and by the general public) about guilt and innocence of the alleged VICTIMS in rape trials. This ad, and other cultural artifacts like it, are telling men that women who are "easy" and have been drinking are fair game--that they are incapable of NOT giving consent. When we allow messages like this to be all around us without looking at them critically, we support a rape culture in which women who press charges for rape are judged based on criteria like past sexual history and whether or not they were drinking before we even bother to look at other kinds of evidence to determine whether their alleged attackers are guilty. The ad supports rape culture.

Thank you, SociologicalMe and frances. Well said.

SociologicalMe- Thanks, that was a really great explanation of the link between the ad and rape culture. I appreciate the insight.

"What some of you guys are missing is that drunk people are not capable of meaningful consent"

Two things: One- do you think every frat boy who gets drunk and sleeps with a girl he wouldn't have slept with if sober is a rape victim? Two- Really?

SociologicalMe: I don't buy it. "Easy" may be in the vocabulary of the rapist-denier, but so are a lot of things, like, the word "slut," tight clothing, and mini-skirts. It doesn't mean that everyone who uses those terms is trying to defend date rape. (people that use "slut" unironically have their own problems, but that's irrelevant to the main idea here)

Also the ad says nothing about women who have been drinking--it's a beer ad targeted towards men.

The ad is sexist ("hey dudes, you like women that put out, so you'll love our 'easy' beer too") but it's hardly facilitating rape.

Most commercials are just trying to sell things to suckers. Point is that 99-percent of ads are worthless piles of crap to begin with. Plus, beer is a trashcan high. YUCK!

SociologicalMe and frances put it best. The ad may not come straight out and support date rape, but it uses demeaning language like "easy" and projects this picture of sexual "conquest" made possible through beer. This is rape culture, friends. Not to mention that intoxication = unable to consent = legally RAPE, which any self-respecting beer manufacturer SHOULD know, but this is America and stupid gets you far these days.

Ad companies have cultural responsibility and they should be called on their shit. Spade's a spade.

Okay, can someone point out the implications of sexual "conquest" in that ad? I still don't see it. Alcohol + women in the same sentence doesn't immediately conjure a scene of a sneering, malevolent man serving spiked drinks to an unsuspecting woman and taking advantage of her when she can't refuse him... maybe I've just stayed away from the bad parties?

"Easy" is problematic, but it isn't a consent issue. "Drinking" is a consent issue. What did they include "drinking" in the ad for if not to suggest that guys like to -- and should like to -- go after women who are visibly intoxicated?

Watch The 40-Year-Old Virgin and then try to say there's nothing in the culture to encourage that behavior in men. Go to Walmart and look at the "Buy me another drink, you're still ugly" shirts in the juniors' department and then say it's a harmless exercise of sexual freedom. This bullshit has got to stop.

And to Merrick and others -- the idea with seeking out drunk women is that they're less likely to say no to men they might turn down if they were sober, haw haw haw. What part of deliberately targeting people who aren't up to normal adult decision-making capabilities is not rape?

Misspelled: to suggest that guys like to drink when they pick up women, for reasons that other commenters have covered?

The ad says "For people who like things that are easy and drinking." The "things" are women.

Oh, now I see the confusion. You can actually read that two ways. You can separate it into "things that are easy" and "drinking" (as the compound D.O. of the sentence) or you can split it into just "easy" and "drinking" as the modifier of "things". Reading "A" suggests that the men are the ones doing the drinking; reading "B" suggests that the women are.

Regarding the quotes, there is ambiguity there as well. The fact that the quotes are just around "easy" rather than "things that are easy" supports the "B" interpretation, until you realize that the words in quotes are ripped straight out of the opening sentence, so it's also possible the quotes are there to hammer in the catch-phrase "Easy-Drinking Taste".

I chose interpretation "A" however for two reasons. Firstly because beer is generally sold more to men, therefore an interpretation that suggests that men are drinking it sounds more reasonable to me. Secondly because I tend to think of gerund forms as nouns rather than adjectives and so the parallel structure of noun/noun fits sounds better than adj/adj.

Either way though, the designers of this ad are a pack of idiots.

...Okay. The beer is "easy-drinking." So it's for people who like things that are "easy" and "drinking." Other things that are "easy" and "drinking" include "trashed whores."

Seriously, I think the ad makes itself pretty clear. Does a beer ad really need to point out that its product will be particularly enjoyable to anyone who likes drinking?

It's not promoting rape, so much as promoting the idea that it's manly and impressive to take advantage of the sort of women whose inhibitions are lowered enough while drinking that they'll have sex they otherwise wouldn't be willing to have while sober. I think that cultural paradigm is problematic enough on its own; we don't need to cry "rape" to make it a real issue.

Unless "easy" is somehow slang for "too drunk to giver her consent," but last I checked, it was slang for "gives her consent readily."

"What some of you guys are missing is that drunk people are not capable of meaningful consent. Therefore, this ad is encouraging the kind of thinking that results in rape."

Would you apply that same thinking to a drunk guy and a sober girl? How drunk is "drunk"?

Guys aren't our babysitters - that's a patriarchal idea if ever I heard one. If "no" means "no," "yes," means "yes."

I really do think an American lager needs to point out that its product will be enjoyable to anyone who likes drinking. They will probably be lying, but it could be useful to point it out in case there's some poor sod out there that is willing to believe that this brand of piss will be better than the ones before.

Joking aside, catch-phrases frequently combine obvious connections to the advertised product with unobvious ones.

I could just as easily turn that phrase around and say: The beer is "easy-drinking." So it's for people who like easy women and drinking beer.

And given the amount of people who have wandered into this thread utterly confused as to where the rape subtext is, I'd say that it's not very clear at all.

In this culture and legal system, we hold people responsible for decisions they make while intoxicated, be it theft, murder, fighting, or choosing to drive. It makes no logical sense to say that a woman who's drunk (and still conscious and able to communicate, participate in sex, be aware of her surroundings, etc.) doesn't have the power to choose to consent anymore than it makes sense to say that a drunken husband doesn't have the power to choose not to beat his wife, or that the drunken frat boy is too inhibited to have the capacity not to rape. Double standard.

I've been drunk many times in my life (am I the only one here who has??), and even had sex during some drunken episodes. It's not magical brainwash juice that makes me say "yes" when I mean "no," it just makes me more likely to talk dirty and not feel embarassed, that sort of thing.

To me, this whole idea is so obviously linked to the old patriarchal idea of women being "morally fragile" and needing men to protect them from themselves and the consequences of their actions that I'm frankly surprised that it's a controversy among feminist circles.

Patriachy means giving up our power and agency for certain protections, safety, lack of responsibility, etc. Taking back power means taking back responsibility for ourselves. Power over your life necessarily means being responsible for your own decisions.

i dont think that ad really promotes rape at all. the word easy could mean many different things. ie easy going go down easy, and possiable a women, so i understand the concern, but i dont think this promotes rape.

Totally on page with the sexism, somewhat less convinced about it promoting rape per se, though I can see why it strays into that territory (bc if it was advertising jeans or hamburgers and using them as signifiers for 'sluttiness' it would be less a 'rape' thing then a 'gross-sexist-pig' thing).

But what I really wanted to comment on was how odd I found the advertisement. It's obviously geared to men, but it seems to me, liking 'easy drunk girls' doesn't equate to wanting to drink the 'easily drinkable drink' they are drinking.

It makes BudLight sound like a candy drink, like Mikes Hard Lemondade or a Cosmo or something... probably not what Bud wants to pitch to the 70% male beer drinking population. This ad works better for promoting "drunk girls" as a group then BudLight as a drink, as if Bud is offering a PSA of support for drunk girls everywhere, who have been marginalized by Bud drinkers.

So yeah, strike one: sexist, strike two: ethically questionable (the ad itself), stike three: a stupid, stupid ad.

Somebody ought to draft up a petition that looks like a class action lawsuit and send it in to Bud. I think that would speak volumes.

I’m gonna get reamed for this, likely insulted, and it will be both implied and explicitly argued that I don’t understand how misogyny permeates our culture, works subtly in our everyday lives, and is often internalized. But in an effort towards dialogue, I’m calling “over-reaction” on this post and several of the comments. I don’t see sexism in this commercial, and I certainly don’t see how it’s promoting rape.

Nothing in this ad points to the idea that the “easy” things they are referring to in this commercial are women. You could interpret it that way, but I don’t think that was the intent of Bud Light.

Bud Light commercials are some of the best beer commercials out there (granted that bar’s not very high, but still). They don’t generally use “hot chicks” and often have gender neutral commercials, even if they do feature men much more often than they do women, it makes sense because men make up a larger share of their market.

Well said A Vies. My interpretation of this commercial- this beer is for people who like things: things that are “easy” AND things that are “drinking”. Granted it’s a dumb ad, but it’s not sexist and it’s definitely not promoting rape.

Ok, I'll say it again. No one here is saying that the ad is a rephrasing of the sentence "Guys, go drink our beer and rape women!" What we are saying is that the ad makes a very irresponsible use of two concepts, "easy" and intoxicated, to conjure up an image of good times for men that may sound innocent but, in reality, has been linked to a culture and a set of situations in which men are likely to think that raping a woman is acceptable.

@ A Vies: Yes, the word "slut" and the concept of a slut is part of rape culture- I actually don't see how it's all that different from the word "easy."

Resources and information about the concept of a rape culture:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gwick/rapeculture.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture

CAfeminist, FYI calling "overreaction" does not constitute an effort towards dialogue.

also, what sociologicalme has said. a couple of times.

I've been drunk many times in my life (am I the only one here who has??), and even had sex during some drunken episodes. It's not magical brainwash juice that makes me say "yes" when I mean "no," it just makes me more likely to talk dirty and not feel embarassed, that sort of thing.

To me, this whole idea is so obviously linked to the old patriarchal idea of women being "morally fragile" and needing men to protect them from themselves and the consequences of their actions that I'm frankly surprised that it's a controversy among feminist circles.

Patriachy means giving up our power and agency for certain protections, safety, lack of responsibility, etc. Taking back power means taking back responsibility for ourselves. Power over your life necessarily means being responsible for your own decisions. >>

I think this is a good point. There's a whole lot of difference between someone being taken advantage of when they're passed out from drink, or so far gone that they can't even talk or walk straight (RAPE) and someone losing their inhibitions and having sex because of a few glasses of beer or wine or a shots of tequila (NOT RAPE).

E.g. if a couple share a bottle of wine over dinner (a fair amount of alcohol) and then have sex, is that rape because neither is able to give informed consent?

I hat to tell you guys, but desperately trying NOT to see sexism doesn't actually make it go away. It just makes it harder to fight. Referring to women as 'things', as this ad clearly does, is sexist.

I am a feminist. I can dissect most ads, but this? Come on.

It made me think of a lazy man who's always trying to find the 'easiest' way to do something or get out of something and just get drunk.

There are no women depicted.
There are no references to women.
The only person pictured is a man.
This ad uses the word 'people'.

You have to try DESPERATELY hard to see 'sexism' in this ad.

I'm sorry that some of us see 'easy sex w/ women' in the word 'easy'.

If we keep over analyzing things, then no one will take us seriously.

One last word on the topic before I go back to ignoring people who ignore rape culture: an excerpt from Laurel Richardson's article "Gender Stereotyping in the English Language" (published in Feminist Frontiers, Taylor et. al. eds.):

"...consider the difference in connotation of the following expressions:
It's easy
He's easy
She's easy
In the first, we assume something is 'easy to do'; in the second, we might assume a professor is an 'easy grader' or a man is 'easygoing.' But when we read 'she's easy,' the connotation is 'she's an easy lay.'In the world of slang, men are defined by their sexual prowess. In the world of slang and proper speech, women are defined as sexual objects."

The people who designed this ad are aware of this difference, and they know we'll respond to it because of the cultural connotations of the language.

And I'm done. Thanks to those who seconded me, to those who disagreed, I hope you're not done learning.

I'm sorry, but where in this ad does it state 'she's easy'?

This Bud Light advertisement is ridiculous! Overanalyzing? Really? This ad is clearly pointed towards male consumers, and clearly references those females who are “easy and drinking.” No, the advertisement doesn’t specifically say females, but the term “easy” has been historically and widely used to discredit women who have been attacked and raped. Also, it refers to drinking as a means to get sex from a woman. This ad may not come out and say “drink bud light if you want to rape an easy and drinking woman,” but it uses underlying language that is directly linked to rape and sexual exploitation in our society. By describing the woman as being easy and drinking, it supports date rape in a subtle way through the use of demeaning language. Also, if a woman is intoxicated, she clearly isn’t able to give consent, which all ads up to rape. Think about what this beer manufacturer is saying to the men in our society, that woman who have been drinking and are “easy” are fair game. This advertisement, and others like it, that are surrounding us in our society support a rape culture, in which women are objectified and degraded. This advertisement is yet another example.