Cheap Seats 2023 By Rich Trzupek

Is Bud Wiser? - 05/03

By Rich Trzupek
  I feel bad for Dylan Mulvaney. I don’t feel bad for Anheuser Busch.
  Mulvaney did nothing that requires being crapped on by the general public. It is of no interest to me how a person dresses, or chooses to conduct themself, so long is they do not harm other people.
  Personally, I wouldn’t choose to hang out with Dylan, but that has nothing to do with gender, biological or otherwise. Every video I’ve seen of Dylan features a great deal of prancing about, self-conscious giggling and acting like the classic ditzy blonde. Whatever a person has under the hood this is not the sort of person I would choose to spend time with.
  This does not make Dylan a bad person. There are obviously a lot of people who enjoy this particular persona. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I refuse to be bullied into pretending that I enjoy the Dylan show. We can all choose to change the channel.
  And I hate to break it to that portion of the radical left that has chosen to make transgenderism their cause celebre, but there is nothing new here. We’ve had biological dudes dressing as women and acting in a manner that they find womanly for a very long time. In my youth we had Boy George, Rip Taylor, Bowie during his androgynous phase and Tiny Tim, just to name a few.
  That of course is just a few examples from the entertainment world. Most of us had interactions with people that we used to refer to as cross dressers. It just wasn’t a big deal. Today, even using that term – cross dresser – is taken by many on the radical left in a pejorative sense. Of course we’re talking about people capable of taking offense by the perceived improper use of pronouns, so this should not come as a big surprise.
  Bud Light did not drop the ball by picking a trans spokesperson, Bud Light screwed up by picking a trans spokesperson that is, for a great many people, both annoying and obnoxious. And perhaps the most obnoxious thing about the Dylan show is the character Dylan portrays is insulting to women. Do women of any sort want to be portrayed as ignorant, giggling, airheads? I think not.
  Dylan’s character is supposedly so clueless that the term March Madness is a mystery. Really? I doubt that there is any person on planet earth less interested in organized athletics than my wife. But of course she knows what March Madness is.
  Bud light wanted to attract a new generation of drinkers for whom trans identities are important surely they could have done so in a way that was far less obnoxious and that made it clear they were looking to build upon their traditional base, not alienate it.
  Imagine, for example, the modern equivalent of androgynous Bowie sipping brew at a bar next to a sweaty factory worker who’s just come off shift. Maybe you have the factory worker look over at the Bowie character and remark “I think you should have used a darker shade of eyeliner.” Then you have the Bowie character lean back and look at the factory workers behind and reply “I think you should do something about that butt crack.” Then they stare at each other for a couple of seconds before smiles break out, they tap bottles and a suitable slogan comes up on the screen. Something like: “Whatever floats your boat it’s smooth sailing with Bud Light.” Or maybe: “Can we get past pronouns and just enjoy a cold one?” Something like that.
  Yes, I am sure there are some people who would still be offended by that commercial, but I’m also certain that commercial would not result in the mass exodus from the brand that we have seen.
  The vast majority of Americans are not transphobic in any meaningful way. What bothers a great many Americans is the way that fear of language dominates so many current cultural conversations. We understand that a great number of academics have educated greater numbers of students to fervently believe that because words are weapons they must be carefully managed. That outlook and the angry cancel culture that grows out of it is abhorrent to those of us who believe that the land of the free must include freedom of speech. For us the Dylan Mulvaney commercial was not an attempt to have a conversation, it was an effort to shout any other voices down.
  Email: RichTrzupek@gmail.com