Miller Lite Slammed for Cracking Down on Sexualizing Women to Sell Beer

Conservatives slammed Miller Lite as "woke" over a recent commercial in which the beer brand reckoned with its past depiction of women in its advertisements.

Miller Lite released the commercial, which stars comedian and actress Ilana Glazer, as part of its Women's History Month campaign in March. The clip has reemerged on social media in recent days, with conservatives equating the company's embrace of feminism to "wokeness." Meanwhile, several companies have dealt with conservative backlash over inclusive messaging. The latest criticisms follow a monthslong uproar over Bud Light's ad campaign that featured Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender TikTok star and activist.

In the Miller Lite commercial, Glazer confronted Miller Lite's past advertisements, which have faced criticism for the sexualization of women. She said the company is "working to clean up the whole beer industry's s***" while highlighting the company's efforts to purchase old marketing material to turn it into compost to be sent to women brewers.

"From Mesopotamia to the Middle Ages to Colonial America, women were the ones doing the brewing," Glazer said. "Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis. Wow."

However, conservatives took issue with the commercial's message, which was first posted to YouTube on March 7. Several high-profile right-wing influencers took to Twitter to air their grievances with the ad, causing the company to trend on Twitter on Monday afternoon.

Newsweek reached out to Molson Coors, which owns Miller Lite, for comment via email.

"Miller Lite said to Bud Light, 'hold my beer,' and decided to create a new ad campaign straight out of early 2010s 'I hate all men' feminism to sell a drink to customers they hate," tweeted conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong. "It's just condescending. Why do ad agencies think condescending ads work? They don't. You'd think they'd have learned from all those Gillette ads backfiring."

"My critique of this is not that Miller Lite is targeting women. It's that it treats women like fragile victims. It's a vegan feminist lesbian's idea of 'female empowerment.' Working women and moms are too busy getting things done to care about this garbage. Dudes like hot women. Get over it. Nobody faults women for liking hot guys. Enough of this whining. It won't sell you more beer," tweeted journalist Kyle Becker.

"WATCH: Miller Lite outdoes Bud Light for tone deaf woke marketing in this annoyingly heavy handed feminist advert that claims women invented beer," tweeted talk show host Steven Steele.

Others, however, defended the commercial.

"this is hilarious, actually. I actually think that Miller Lite got it a lot more right than Bud Lite in how it approached a female demo," tweeted journalist Emily Zannoti.

"Wow I can't believe all the crybabies over Miller Light doing a commercial about empowering women. Some men are so afraid of women having any power, it would be comical if it wasn't so damn sad," wrote Twitter user @trashcandi.

Meanwhile, many conservatives compared the advertisement to Bud Light's controversy, even thought Miller Lite's commercial was released weeks before Bud Light's problems began. Conservatives vowed to boycott Bud Light after the company sent Mulvaney some of its beer, including a can that featured her face, to promote a contest. Soon after, the beer brand found itself at the center of a culture war issue about transgender rights and has seen its stock drop amid this fallout.

Bud Light's parent company, Anheuser-Busch, has appeared to have made several attempts at damage control over the social media furor. In April, CEO Brendan Whitworth, issued a statement in which he said: "We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. My time serving this country taught me the importance of accountability and the values upon which America was founded: freedom, hard work, and respect for one another."

Transgender rights and inclusion are issues that are proving deeply polarizing within the United States. A survey by the Pew Research Center last year found that 38 percent of Americans believed that society had gone too far in accepting transgender people, while 36 percent said it had not gone far enough.

Other companies, including Starbucks and Target, have also faced backlash over recent marketing moves decried by the right as "woke."