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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   37612 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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Is Dylan Mulvaney the Trans Andy Kaufmann?

Watching the Dylan Mulvaney spectacle play out has left me with an odd feeling that I’ve struggled to quite put a finger on, with Mulvaney causing me to have something like an uncanny valley reaction to his transition and demeanor. I don’t mean this to say that Mulvaney looks almost female, but not quite, I mean that Mulvaney gives me the impression of someone that isn’t sincere about transitioning, but has put enough effort into it that I’m not exactly sure what’s going on and what to make of this person. In light of the recent Bud Light debacle I’ve finally settled on an explanation that makes more sense to me - Mulvaney is a modern Andy Kaufman, playing the part of a trans person well enough to convince some people, while others are in on the joke, and all of them contribute to Mulvaney’s accrual of fame and cash.

Who was Andy Kaufman? I think the Wiki summary is better than anything I’ll write up:

During this time, he continued to tour comedy clubs and theaters in a series of unique performance art/comedy shows, sometimes appearing as himself and sometimes as obnoxiously rude lounge singer Tony Clifton. He was also a frequent guest on sketch comedy and late-night talk shows, particularly Late Night with David Letterman.[6] In 1982, Kaufman brought his professional wrestling villain act to Letterman's show by way of a staged encounter with Jerry "The King" Lawler of the Continental Wrestling Association. The fact that the altercation was planned was not publicly disclosed for over a decade.

Kaufman died of lung cancer on May 16, 1984, at the age of 35.[7] As pranks and elaborate ruses were major elements of his career, persistent rumors have circulated that Kaufman faked his own death as a grand hoax.[6][8] He continues to be respected for the variety of his characters, his uniquely counterintuitive approach to comedy, and his willingness to provoke negative and confused reactions from audiences.[6][9]

Comedian Richard Lewis in A Comedy Salute to Andy Kaufman said of him: "No one has ever done what Andy did, and did it as well, and no one will ever. Because he did it first. So did Buster Keaton, so did Andy."[96] Carl Reiner recalled his distinction in the comedy world:

Did Andy influence comedy? No. Because nobody's doing what he did. Jim Carrey was influenced—not to do what Andy did, but to follow his own drummer. I think Andy did that for a lot of people. Follow your own drumbeat. You didn't have to go up there and say 'take my wife, please.'[97] You could do anything that struck you as entertaining. It gave people freedom to be themselves.[98]

Reiner also said of Kaufman: "Nobody can see past the edges, where the character begins and he ends."[99]

Kaufman made people laugh, get angry with him, and even physically attack him by playacting at different roles so successfully than people couldn’t tell where the sincere Kaufman stopped and the characters began. When I watch Dylan Mulvaney advertise native-scented deodorant, I don’t see someone that’s genuinely trying to be a woman. I see someone that’s clowning the concept, mocking women, mocking trans people, and exploiting the clicks for fun and profit.

I wasn’t around for Kaufman, so this comparison is likely imperfect. Nonetheless, watching people react to what sure looks to me like a running joke as though it’s perfectly sincere has been entirely surreal. I see people on the pro-trans side treating Mulvaney as sincere. If I’m right and this is a running joke, Joe Biden sure didn’t get the word. My inclination has been to chalk this up to people becoming sufficiently accustomed to never question claims from trans people that playing along with Dylan Mulvaney is no different than the rest of it, and even if they have doubts, they’re surely not going to look at Dylan and saying, “oh, come the fuck on”. So even though this was weird, it wasn’t until the Bud Light thing that it began to really seem hyperreal to me.

Here, watch this 35 second reaction video from Kid Rock. What’s going on here? Is Kid Rock sincerely pissed off at Bud Light, so pissed off that the only way to express it is with a burst of automatic weapons fire supplemented by some covering fire from a shotgun-wielding buddy? Is he basically sincere in his reaction, but strongly exaggerating the reaction because it’s funny? Is he ambivalent, but doing it for the clicks and lols? Is he part of the Bud Light advertising campaign, just driving the product into people’s mindspace? Does he agree with me that the whole thing is a big joke and he’s just rolling with his own improv? I don’t know and I don’t even know how I would know.

Vox reports that people have reacted in real life:

Don, a liquor store owner in Arkansas who requested to remain anonymous so he “doesn’t get caught up in the wokeness,” told me he’s seen a 20-25 percent dip in Bud Light sales since the controversy hit, with his admittedly small sample size of shoppers seemingly opting for Miller Lite and Coors Light instead. However, he doesn’t expect the backlash to stick. “A lot of people are talking about it, fired up about it, they’re never drinking Bud Light again, yada yada yada, but they’ll be drinking them in a month, as soon as the news cycle quits,” he said.

Well, what are those people thinking? Are they genuinely pissed, but not so pissed as to permanently give up a product that seems completely fungible with other light beers? How about Ben Shapiro:

The post started to pick up steam in conservative circles relatively quickly. Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro decried the collaboration on his show, saying, “Well, folks, our culture has now decided men are women and women are men and you must be forced to consume products that say so.” Shapiro appears not to be much of a Bud Light fan himself, so he probably doesn’t have much to boycott. “I understand Bud Light is piss water masquerading as beer,” he said, “so I guess that, you know, it’s sort of trans beer.”

Well, I’m glad he at least kept the on-brand smugness. In fact, no one seems to be missing out on their normal branding, which lends itself to the hyperreal experience. In keeping with that, I will smugly note that I don’t drink that shit anyway and I’ll be cracking an IPA from a real industry underdog - Lagunitas(tm), a tiny subsidiary of a little-known international parent company. Thank God that I’m not getting taken in by all this hyperreal marketing.

Same as the performance-based social media backlash against Nike regarding the Kaepernick ads. Or against Starbucks and Disney. It will pass in a few weeks, as it always does. Social media is the perfect medium for expressing outrage. Conservatives may try to boycott but the hard part is sustaining it.

I haven’t bought a Nike product since. Maybe I’m too small to matter. It’s very hard to find basketball shoes that are not Nike.

Agree. People are still boycotting Nike. Also, the Bud Light boycott won't pass.

But the situations are different.

Nike escaped unscathed because, for every person boycotting, there is another person who is buying Nike in part because of their woke pivot. For Nike it's not a bad strategy. Before going woke, the political position of Nike was of an evil sweatshop owner. They've switched the narrative and probably gained more consumers than they lost.

But Bud Light is going to lose sales forever. They are alienating their core constituency. And Bud Light will never be consumed by urban elites.

This is awful business strategy and will cost them billions.

But Bud Light is going to lose sales forever. They are alienating their core constituency. And Bud Light will never be consumed by urban elites.

They don't care. They'd rather not be affiliated with that constituency. And no one else will pick it up because essentially all the marketing people who would be hired into a big brand are aligned.

Well they should care. As @jeroboam said, they're going to lose a lot of money if they piss off that constituency. The company may be so infested with ideologues that they are willing to lose money for ideology, but eventually that will run them into the ground if they don't get a clue.

The company may be so infested with ideologues that they are willing to lose money for ideology, but eventually that will run them into the ground if they don't get a clue.

Why? If the market is smaller and AB makes less total revenue, AB can just be a little smaller and do fine. Hollywood has been doing fine for decades explicitly avoiding catering to conservatives (since the Rural Purge); the occasional show or movie that does generally does well but they don't follow up.

Well if @jeroboam is right (and I think he probably is), the market for cheap shitty beer is different from Hollywood in that the market is almost all Red Tribe. It's one thing to commit to being woke and lose 25% of your revenue, it's another thing to lose 75%.

Well they should care. As @jeroboam said, they're going to lose a lot of money if they piss off that constituency. The company may be so infested with ideologues that they are willing to lose money for ideology, but eventually that will run them into the ground if they don't get a clue.

I do think "Bud Light" as a brand will suffer. But really, worst case scenario, they'll pull a switcheroo to escape the bad vibes a la Anglo-Iranian Oil -> British Petroleum -> BP. The American public does not have the attention span to keep track of which mask Nyarlathotep is wearing.

Wouldn’t be surprised if the bud light seltzers make up for all the lost sales

Seltzers and coolers and such go through cycles, but they're generally fads and fade. Beer is evergreen. So ABInbev would be foolish to depend on them.

And no one else will pick it up because essentially all the marketing people who would be hired into a big brand are aligned.

Burgers?

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