What Budweiser's 'porn' ad proves
Why the beer company's "too-hot-for-TV, online-only video" is causing a stir
A Bud Light ad has proved that "pornography has soaked so far into the fabric of mainstream culture that it's no longer seen as a stain," said Belinda Luscombe in Time.com. The beer company released a "too-hot-for-TV, online-only video" recently featuring a guy purchasing a six-pack of Bud Light and pornography, and because the ad "comes from a highly respected American brand, it seems to mark some kind of cultural tipping point." (watch the Bud Light 'porn' ad)
Not really, said Videogum. Isn't the Bud Light ad almost "an exact ripoff of the funny/sad scene" in 2006's "Little Miss Sunshine where Steve Carrel runs into his ex while buying porn in a convenience store?" And Even Woody Allen's 1971 film Bananas had a "similar scene"—this is nothing new.
True, "any casual observer of the culture has seen the attempted mainstreaming of pornography unfold over the last couple of decades," said Rod Dreher in Beliefnet. But the Bud Light ad could be seen as a "prelude to pushing more and more porn references into everyday advertising in magazines" and "on TV." It's disconcerting, because porn is "morally evil both in its exploitation of the people depicted and the sins it causes in the people purchasing and using it."
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