This Bud Light commercial is a good example of an ad that capitalizes on gender stereotypes. The ad begins with a man saying goodbye to someone we assume is his wife. The wife is having a book club discussion with her friends who are all women. Just as the man is about to leave, he notices a bucket full of Bud Light beers. Because of this, he changes his mind and decides to stay instead. The scenes that follow portray the man behaving in various stereotypical behavior. First, he asks what story they're discussing. The dialogue is as follows:
Woman: We were discussing the relationship of two women thrust together by war.
Man: Ooh, thrusting. Okay I'm with ya.
The man says this while removing the book from the hand of the woman, showing that he's clearly uninterested in the story itself. He only responds to the part which could be construed as sexual. This behavior goes along with the stereotype that men are only interested in sex and not much else. After this, he talks to another woman who isn't his wife and says, "I'd like to hear you read some words" in a suggestive manner. The woman doesn't know how to react and just looks away. The man doesn't care that his wife might hear him hitting on another woman, again displaying another stereotypical behavior. The last scene features a different man from the beginning although they are wearing the same outfit so we're to assume that it's the first man's teammate. He has a discussion with another woman that goes like this:
Woman: So then do you like Little Women (referring to the book by Louisa May Alcott)?
Man: Yeah, I'm not too picky...no.
We're supposed to laugh because the man has never heard of the book and misinterprets the woman's question. See, he thought she was asking him if he liked little women! Isn't it funny? Not really. This type of dynamic between men and women has been played out over and over again that there's nothing really clever about it anymore if there was anything clever about it to begin with. It's possible that the man has never heard of "Little Women" because he's a man and men aren't supposed to like reading. It's also possible that he's never heard of "Little Women" because it's a story about 4 sisters and their lives and relationships and men aren't supposed to be interested in that kind of thing. Either way, it doesn't paint a very flattering picture of relationships between men and women because they're not allowed to share the same interests simply because they have different genders. If we subscribe to this idea, then a lot of people will miss out on experiences for completely insubstantial reasons.
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