While unwinding after a weekend full of empirical research, I saw a new commercial for Heineken Light, which involved sexualizing a beer bottle and playing a song by the Pussycat Dolls with the refrain ‘Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?’ One wonders whether women have been so essentialized that their essence is comparable to a beer bottle.
Others have expressed being a bit perplexed by Heineken’s choice. See this (“the company’s new television spot shows their trademark green bottles moving back and forth in a sort of striptease. The soundtrack for the spot is some dance song right out of a seedy gentleman’s club”); see also this (“Between the implied sexuality of moist bottles, and wet, slippery surfaces, and the blatant message of the music this is almost high camp. The advertisement’s message is essentially that if you grab a Heinie light, you are going to shake the weight of your crappy relationship and get some action man.”).
You can see a short version of the commercial here (after the Flash intro loads, click on “The Latest” tab, then on “The Ads,” then on “TV Campaign”). You can link to the Pussycat Dolls song on iTunes here.
–Susan Franck
