Can Date Rape Sell Beer?

Bonnie Zylbergold is a staff writer for American Sexuality Magazine. She holds her M.A. in Human Sexuality from San Francisco State University and will be posting weekly on the American Sexuality Blog.

In its latest ad campaign, American beer company Miller Lite references the popular date rape drug GHB. Thus far, I have had the "pleasure" of catching two separate commercials belonging to this new campaign. I was not a fan of either, but one in particular managed to rub me the wrong way, (no easy feat considering I was half asleep when it came on.)

The commercial takes place in what can only be described as a frat party. Two women are shown standing around holding drinks, or more appropriately, beer. All of a sudden, a man comes running up to them, and in slow motion, leaps towards one of the woman in attempt to grab the beer out of her hand. At this point the label is clearly shown, and the audience becomes aware that she is holding, and about to drink, a "light" beer. The man in question screams out something to the affect of, "No! Don't drink that. It has GHT in it."

Here is where I woke up: this was an obvious and direct reference to GHB, a drug notorious for its use in date rape and other horrible situations where victims are drugged. The man continues, explaining that Miller Lite has no GHT in it, and promptly switches her "light" beer with a Miller "lite". That's pretty much the gist of it.

I suppose many in the industry would find this play on words clever. I, however, find it scary and disconcerting. When did date rape become so blase that corporate America is using it to sell beer? One would have to assume that the people behind this campaign found the issue of date rape either sexy or humorous enough to believe that it could be applied in such a circumstance. After all, sex and humor are the two main criteria (in advertising) for selling everything from ice cream to cigarettes. I guess I just never found rape or drugging people to be sexy. Or funny.