Beer And War

What Budweiser Knows About War -- New Yorker

Watching the basketball playoffs, I’ve been struck by this Budweiser commercial, called “Coming Home,” which is in heavy rotation:

What is Budweiser advertising here? Beer, obviously, but what part of the beer experience—and what part of the war experience does it draw on? Even though the ad ends with a party, the mood is not celebration but relief at the end of a long day of work, when you are very tired. (Both of the main characters are asleep at some point in the ad.) It is notable that the welcomer is a older brother or friend—avoiding the device of the little boy who looks at the soldier and wants to be him—rather than a parent. (There’s a middle-aged couple at the party, but we see the brother calling them at another house, and the woman’s greeting is more that of an aunt’s.) This soldier is a kid—he could pass for a high school sophomore—and somewhat unmoored; going to war has not changed either of those things. He looks on the verge of tears until the very end, when everybody else is hugging him. In one shot, he dries his hands at the sink in what looks like a grim bus-terminal bathroom, and then wipes his eyes, as if he’s been crying where no one could see him. He is not the conquering hero, nor was meant to be. What he is meant to be is at home.

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My Comment: My favorite "military" commercial has always been the following ....

Update: Then again .... some are wondering if Budweiser is targeting the Gay community in their advertising.