As feminism goes through its fourth wave and women everywhere stand up for new issues such as the salary gap or the fight against rape culture, brands everywhere are under the scope for every move, and now it is Budweiser in the middle of a whirlwind of controversy with Bud Light's backlash.
While beer has been often advertised as a heavily sexist drink (in Brazil there's currently a project to create a "feminist beer" that steers away from classic advertising of heavily sexualized and scantly clad women), the new Bud Light backlash sees the popular brand take one of its worst strikes in years, as it's being accused of promoting rape culture.
According to NPR, the Bud Light backlash started earlier this week, when Budweiser launched its yearly "Up For Whatever" campaign and one of the messages in the beer bottles said that the drink was "the perfect beer for removing 'no' from your vocabulary for the night."
Quick Bud Light backlash followed, as Redditors and Twitter users publicly discussed the slogan as promoting rape culture, as it would deny people consensual sex, as it has been established that being under the influence of alcohol and drugs removes the possibility of consent.
Yahoo! News reports that it isn't the first Bud Light backlash of a sexist nature in the past few months, as the same Up For Whatever campaign saw the brand tweet during St. Patrick's Day that it was fair game to "pinch" those people (mostly women, judging by the photo they published along with the words) that weren't #UpForWhatever.
WoodTV reports that, following the heavy backlash, Budweiser pulled the controversial label from the campaign.
"The Bud Light Up For Whatever campaign, now in its second year, has inspired millions of consumers to engage with our brand in a positive and light-hearted way," said Alexander Lambrecht, vice president of the brand, following the heavy Bud Light backlash. "In this spirit, we created more than 140 different scroll messages intended to encourage spontaneous fun. It's clear that this message missed the mark, and we regret it."
