This Youtube video is of a newer commercial released by The Miller Light Brewing Company. The commercial begins with a group of friends in a bar, ordering a round of beer. While ordering beer one the men in the group has a menu in front of his face. The waitress asks him which beer he wants and he says he does not care. She then says when he takes and sunglasses off and wants a real beer she will come back. The menu then drops and reveals him wearing sunglasses in the dark bar. He says he needed them for the light outside, but it is now revealed that it is around midnight, obviously dark outside. This commercial shows society's view of a real man, and what a real man should order, a Vortex Miller Light.
The commercial is meant to be a comical situation in order to make consumers purchase their beer. The underlying stronger tone of the commercial is the fact that the guy with the sunglasses is not fitting the figure of a true man. Society has painted a picture in the minds all men and women, of what the quintessence of a man should be like. It is supposed to be evident that if a man does not care what kind of beer he gets then he is not a real man. A true man would not even have to think twice about choosing a beer because the Miller Light Vortex bottle should be a given choice. His disinterest in beer not only shows he is not a man but that he is not desirable by women and also an embarrassment to his group of friends. This ad goes to show that society places an unrealistic price on the outward characteristics of a person, or how they appear to the public. Society has veered away from having a good time with friends and focused more on the appearance, which is what commercial producers are focusing on to reel in consumers, such as this add.
What the ad here is trying to do is interesting: it's trying to scare the men who watch it away from ordering anything except a Miller Lite. It tries to associate a preference for any other beer or no preference in light beer to several things: femininity, goofiness, lack of style, awkwardness. The character in the commercial of the lowest value and status: as you pointed out, both unattractive to women and an embarrassment to his friends. Humiliating in every sense. No man wants to be the lowest on the totem pole, subject of ridicule and man-gossip, inexorably linked to low self-esteem. Just raising the spectre of such a scenario, even if in the back of most men's minds, will probably be selling some bottles.
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