The Controversy Surrounding Bud Light's Team-Up With Comedian Shane Gillis
When two cultural phenomena get canceled, do they cancel each other out to make a net positive? We're unsure, but Anheuser-Busch appears to be conducting that little experiment for us with its 2024 partnership with controversial comedian Shane Gillis. The announcement comes one year after the company's disastrous attempt to collaborate with social media figure and trans woman Dylan Mulvaney, which resulted in a months-long boycott of the brand by anti-LGBTQ+ protestors.
But first, let's break down the controversy around Shane Gillis. The comedian's big break came and went in a matter of days in 2019, with NBC's "Saturday Night Live" quickly reneging their decision to welcome Gillis onto the show after clips resurfaced of Gillis using anti-Asian and anti-LGBTQ slurs on a podcast in 2018. Gillis took the firing in stride, telling Variety he knew that the controversy surrounding his remarks would've been a distraction for the show.
These days, the distraction seems to be less of a concern. Gillis made his hosting debut on the sketch comedy show in late February 2024, and as he embarks on his partnership with Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light brand, people are concerned Gillis' return to the limelight is coming at the expense of both the right and left political ideologies.
To the left, Shane Gillis is a step in the wrong cultural direction
In a March 2023 episode of the "Make Yourself at Home" podcast, Bud Light's then-VP of marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid, said the company's collaboration with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney was an attempt to move away from the beer's "fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor" toward something more inclusive. The backlash by right-wing, anti-LGBTQ protestors was swift. Sales plummeted. Kid Rock recorded himself shooting a pile of 30-packs with an assault rifle. Conservative media and supporters began denouncing Bud Light for its "pro-LGBTQ" rhetoric and harassing Mulvaney, during which she said Bud Light never offered its support (via TikTok).
Comedian Shane Gillis discussed the PR nightmare with Joe Rogan on an episode of the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, saying, "[Bud Light] became a joke. That's tough to overcome, marketing-wise. It's tough to get people to order a Bud Light publicly. You're gonna get made fun of."
One year later, Shane Gillis stepped in as an ambassador for the beer. Conservative commentators like Fox News host Greg Gutfeld lauded Bud Light for "rediscovering its core values," implying that Gillis' dude-bro, working class, and right-leaning humor fell more in line with the brand than Mulvaney, whom Gutfeld described as an "insult to [Bud Light's] core customers." This rhetoric, paired with Gillis' penchant for jokes that use minorities as the punchline, has sparked new controversy on the left — and rekindled some divisive flames on the right, too.
To the right, Shane Gillis is either a sell-out, an undercover liberal, or both
If Shane Gillis is working hard to perpetuate political incorrectness to the left, then he's working overtime in the eyes of the right. The comment section of Gillis' Instagram post announcing his partnership with Bud Light is flooded with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, this time aimed at Gillis. It would appear those who once disapproved of Dylan Mulvaney's association with the brand are transferring these opinions onto Gillis, insisting the comedian must be trans or gay himself.
For conservatives who chose to boycott Bud Light permanently after the Mulvaney debacle, Gillis' willingness to collaborate with the brand proves that he isn't the spokesperson for anti-woke ideology they might've thought he was. Right-wing TV news star Megyn Kelly discussed the Gillis controversy on an episode "The Megyn Kelly Show," saying, "He's partnering with Bud Light, which is basically a slur in Republican circles. He went from doing slurs the left finds upsetting to issuing one out of his mouth the right finds upsetting."
On the other hand, some critics agree that Gillis is a voice for the right, and Bud Light's decision to work with him is a flimsy attempt to recoup its lost customer base — an attempt many predict will be unsuccessful. Comic Tim Young told Fox News Digital that he believed Gillis' partnership with Bud Light "will not win back a single Bud Light drinker on the right who dropped them for their attempt at woke marketing."