“Tiger King” Weighs in on Backlash to Bud Light
Self-proclaimed “transphobic gay redneck” suggests Bud Light put his face on a can amid sustained conservative backlash against beer giant.
Somehow, Joe Exotic has remained in the public eye for three years — and somehow, conservative backlash against Bud Light has persisted for what feels like three years.
The gay Tiger King star and beer giant are not the strangest bedfellows. Exotic, whose popular Netflix show catapulted him to fame at the beginning of the pandemic, has made transphobic views a cornerstone of his months-old presidential campaign. And when conservatives boycotted Bud Light for its social media partnership with Dylan Mulvaney just three months ago, and called the trans influencer a pedophile, liberals criticized parent company Anheuser-Busch for neither defending Mulvaney nor its decision to collaborate with her.
“For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all,” Mulvaney said in a video statement, “because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want.”
Three months after Mulvaney’s controversial 50-second Instagram video, Exotic — in reality named Joseph Allen Maldonado — has weighed in from behind bars.
Budweiser- Try putting the worlds favorite transphobic gay redneck on a can and get back to selling beer.
Joe Exotic 2024 pic.twitter.com/34eYS1wP4P
— Joe Exotic (@joe_exotic) July 16, 2023
“Budweiser- Try putting the world’s favorite transphobic gay redneck on a can and get back to selling beer,” tweeted Exotic, who is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence for paying to murder wildlife activist Carol Baskin. “Joe Exotic 2024.”
Bud Light, and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch, have been beset by a significant and sustained decrease in sales after angering both conservatives and progressives over its handling of its promotional spot featuring Mulvaney.
For conservatives — who likely comprise the bulk of the boycotters — the decision to partner with Mulvaney — or any transgender person — was viewed as forcing loyal customers to accept a pro-transgender “agenda.” For others, the choice of Mulvaney — who rose to fame with her “365 Days of Girlhood” series, in which she documented the details of her gender transition — was considered a slap in the face to cisgender women who may have felt Mulvaney was mocking the idea of femininity and womanhood.
Despite repeated attempts to distance itself from the Mulvaney promotion, Anheuser-Busch has failed to gain the public’s trust, with many conservative commenters insisting that they will not forgive the company unless it issues an apology for promoting a transgender woman as a spokesperson and denounces the idea of transgender identity altogether. The collective anger directed at Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light is so strong and shows no signs of dying down, with some Americans even pushing to “cancel” musical groups taking part in a Bud Light concert tour.
Meanwhile, Exotic, who has been charged with violating the Endangered Species Act for selling and killing tigers, is running for the nation’s highest elected office — as a Democrat. According to his campaign site, Exotic’s views tend to be more conservative or right-leaning, mixed together with some libertarian and populist impulses. If he continues his campaign through next year, he would be the third person to run for president while incarcerated in federal prison.
While it’s unclear whether Anheuser-Busch boycotters would view a Bud Light partnership with Joe Exotic favorably, or whether it’s too late for the company to regain its former customers who have switched to patronizing other brands, if there’s one thing that liberals and conservatives can agree with each other — and Exotic- — on, it’s that Bud Light is not handling its response to the Mulvaney controversy well.
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