Assvertising: My Uterus Ain't a Keg Edition

The first time I saw this ad, it was because Mr. Shakes had already seen it and made me watch it just because he wanted to see my reaction. The slack-jawed, knitted-browed, what-the-fuck face with which I was left gave him a good belly laugh: "I thought you'd like that," he chortled. "Fooking unbelievable, right?"

Um, yeah:


Today, Bob Garfield of AdAge, a self-proclaimed "one-man gland," calls the ad "arguably the most sexist beer commercial ever produced."

Bearing in mind the historical competition, which Garfield notes includes the Swedith Bikini Team among others, it really is fairly fucking amazing that "this spot from Berlin Cameron United, New York, finds an unprecedented new way to be a gender offender."

We shall explain this presently. First, a misogynistic joke:

The perfect woman: a mute nymphomaniac whose father owns a brewery.

We'd argue that this is almost a perfect punch line, at least in the crystalline purity with which it reduces women to sex objects with no redeeming quality save their capacity to keep your mug overflowing. Here's a variation:

The perfect woman: She's yay high with a flat head for you to rest your beer on.

Please note that "yay high" is accompanied by a gesture indicating waist level. Even more degrading, even more pure. Yet neither of those two jokes -- i.e., the gold standards of female objectification -- manages to trivialize the essence of femininity quite as egregiously as Heineken. And why don't they?

Because they don't portray a woman's uterus as a beer keg.

Heineken does.

Indeed that was my reaction when I took in with horror this new spot, contemplating the "new woman" for the 21st century beer-drinking dude on the go: Brainless, heartless, and soulless, she has none of those pesky "thoughts" and "emotions" to complicate a relationship, and her reproductive system has been conveniently replaced with a keg, from which she'll dutifully dispense beer on demand with a pleasing smile on her ever-content and lovely face. Oh, and by the way, she can self-replicate to serve you and your pals, if you're feeling extra frisky or having a party.

Are we, one wonders, being not only hypocritical but hypercritical here? Are we reacting (excuse the expression) hysterically? Maybe. But we believe that Berlin Cameron United has essentially animated the "perfect woman" joke. Whether intentionally or out of pure animal instinct uncivilized by the most basic notion of respect, they have reduced half the world to a man-servicing beer tap.

That isn't futuristic. It's retrograde.

Sing it, brotha.

And, once again, I'd like to note that what this ad says about men is rather despicable, too.