Heineken International, Pool
A Scottish father and son play pool at a pub as the son flatly announces that he's gay. Without flinching or missing a beat, the father says, "Ah, that's all right, son. That's your decision. It's the '90s after all. Your shot."
The tagline: "How refreshing, how Heineken."
In its neutral handling, this commercial is by far the most positive of three that the company has aired. Two American spots have a more negative connotation to the gay theme.
Beer companies are well represented in The Commercial Closet, largely due to an effort in the mid-1990s to pull away from the industry's longterm sexist advertising themes that objectified women. Such commercials were summed up by the Swedish Bikini Team. Looking for new material to mine, brewers began extensively playing with gay and transgender themes in their advertising. However, because beer drinkers are stereotypically macho, the tone of many of the ads were more often negative.
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