The Republicans are bad at a lot of things: governing, being good people, merchandising, and also, being funny. Sarah Huckabee Sanders‘ ad to sell her beer koozie line is the closest thing you’ll ever experience to a waking fever dream without having to be febrile, and it’s just so hard to explain how inexplicable it is without you having to experience it yourself, so please, give this woman the attention she is so desperately seeking and watch it for yourself, and then we’ll compare notes, OK?
What does a beer koozie have to do with being a “real woman”? It’s rare in my life that I look down at my hands, see I have a koozie in it, and think to myself, “Yes, I am a real woman, in the moment, and not faking it.” Like, what?! I understand the English language is a garbage language with rules that don’t make a lot of sense but you can’t just pick words, put them together, and think we’ll all nod our heads sagely and go along with it because you put an arrow emoji to indicate some kind of urgency to your message. That’s not how any of this works.
What I can’t get over about this video is how it’s an attempt at parody that falls flat on its face. Of course, this is all about Bud Light’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney and the predictable conservative, anti-transgender backlash—and Bud Light’s own predictably disappointing response. Despite that the brand already has John Oliver parodying them from the left as a result, they’ve also now got Sanders’ take on their old “Real American Heroes” ad campaign coming at them from the right. I guess that’s what you get for trying to play both sides for capitalism!
Of course, the “real woman” stuff is all part of conservatives’ continued quest to rally their party around hating transgender people, since they suddenly no longer want to talk about abortion and need to pick a new target to rile up their supporters, because they have no actual policies worth voting for. A lot of their anti-trans initiatives are really awful for trans people in the real world, and then there’s … embarrassing stuff like this.
Don’t think I’m not going to mention the stock footage of a woman mildly just stacking salted fish in a box during the voice-over song. Like, her hands are full. She doesn’t even have room for a flipping koozie, Sarah! Also, what kind of job does she have that she mildly and benignly just stacks salted fish in her hands, presumably all day, and are they hiring?! What is the benefits situation there? Why does every question you ask about this video inspire no answer and just other questions, in an infinite loop?
Once we finally get to the fact this is a video to sell koozies can we not gloss over the fact that the majority of people in this shot are holding wine glasses that would not benefit from a koozie, please?
Also, yes, we’re not going to skip past the fact that one of the “real” women is clearly double-fisting! Again, only one of her drinks would benefit from a koozie. Like, you are trying to sell your koozies, Sarah, and even your own ad doesn’t do a good job extolling the virtues of a koozie. None of this makes sense. It feels like one of those stress dreams where everyone is prepared for something and you have no idea what they’re talking about. Only in this case, you don’t actually want to know what any of this means, you just want to laugh at the conservative bufoons for their swing and a miss. In this regard, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has delivered an embarrassment of riches.
The video ends with perhaps my favorite bit of all: It concedes that conservatives drink from “big woke compan[ies]” so you should ignore your scruples and just cover up the brand with your cheap-ass koozie instead. LOL. Predictably, it’s another case of conservatives “boycotting” a company by … buying their products in order to use them to show their displeasure.
So basically, theirs is a losing position and being a hateful bigot is bad for every corporation’s business, so in order to stay mean, you just gotta cover up labels instead, while still financially rewarding them by buying their products. Honestly, did AI write this ad? There is so much cognitive dissonance here that it’s really hard to find the empathy to understand that a human being could create something this unintentionally terrible, bad, and nonsensical.
Look, it’s been almost 20 years since I graduated high school, but I have no doubt in my mind that if I saw anyone with a Real Women of Politics beer koozie out in the wild, it would be impossible not to mercilessly mock someone with the koozie to the point it would make the other person cry.
I went to the shop at the end of the video. Do you know how much a set of 2 of koozies goes for? Fifteen-f*cking-dollars. Here’s a fun exercise—the minimum wage in each of the states of the “real” women of politics on the koozies:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Arkansas: $11.00
Kay Ivey, Alabama: $7.25
Kim Reynolds, Iowa: $7.25
Kristi Noem, South Dakota: $10.80
So, someone would have to work more than an hour in any of the states of the “real” women of politics in order to afford one of these crappy koozies. That’s not even accounting for tax and what I’m sure is a high shipping cost. How does any of this make sense? It’s just a scam, and a very bad one, at that!
As far as grifts go, this is dopey even by Republican standards. So, enjoy how bad the song is, laugh at anyone who is sad enough to want a koozie with Kay Ivey on it, and be thankful you’re not on the wrong side because it’s a weird, sad, dark place over there.
(featured image: screenshot)
