The Pin-Up Girl Problem...

I found this picture on Google, attributed on his Flickr account to Brian
Bul, although in his responses, it's typed Bui. But I hardly ever see super
cool dragon trailer from Sleeman's anymore and it's totally my favourite.

This all started with a truck - a Sleeman's truck backing into our Beer Store loading dock last Summer. Usually, the trucks are painted with pictures of Sleeman's product but this one was not. No, it had a really cool Japanese print of a stylized dragon on the side with a Sapporo can at the tail (or tail's, in this case) end. Above it were the words: Legendary Biru. I'll assume you don't need a translator for that and also that you know Japanese brewing giant Sapporo owns Sleeman's.

I walked out to the delivery guy and told him, "That is the coolest truck I've ever seen," I said with fan-boy enthusiasm. He just shrugged me off. (Pretty much used to that.)

So here's where the issue brewed, so to speak. What
was meant as "retro-chic" quickly turned to "retro-
sexism" in the eyes of some women's groups. The
pin-up girls were not enough as the ad firm decided
to add text that may have taken it too far for some.

"It was supposed to be the pin-up girls on the sides of the Old Milwaukee cans but some woman's group complained," he said gruffly.

Ahhh yes, the 1950s pin-up models on the sides of the Old Milwaukee cans, both in Canada and the US, have been a staple for years. Until very recently. But I'll get to that in a moment. But first a quick history lesson. The women on the cans were stylized from the works of famed Peruvian pin-up artist, Alberto Vargas. You see, Vargas (1896-1982) was famous for his iconic pin-up girls, often featured in Playboy magazine (1950s-to-1960s). In turn, they were remarkably similar to the women painted on the sides of the Allied planes in WWII, meant to remind the boys to come back alive because there was a woman waiting for them at home. How do I know this? Because I was born towards the tail end of the Baby Boomers and thus possess a wealth of archaic and useless trivia about war-time matters. Also, my late father had a sizable collection of Playboy's from the 1960s and 12-year-old boys are as nosey as hell.

So anyway, back to the Old Milwaukee cans. I didn't know they had caused any kind of issue with anyone. And I was a reporter for nearly three decades so my Spider-Sense... oh, it was tingling!!

The new look on the left, very plain with the tiniest
nod to the pin-up, while on the right, the older, more
obvious pin-ups on the previous cans and packaging.

And I started looking into it. Sure enough, the Battered Women's Support Services (of Canada) had been protesting the cans since about 2010. I think the cans would have escaped their notice (or perhaps not been worthy of their concern) until there was a billboard campaign using the pin-up girl cans with increasingly salacious captions. Indeed, in a July 2011 online piece for the BWSS, writer Angela Marie MacDouggall said her group "wondered if (the billboard campaign) was a cynical trap laid to get the 'feminists' and the 'frat-boys' riled up and trading barbs to the tune of increased revenue for the brewer." While to me, at first anyway, it seemed like a pretty long stretch linking a pin-up girl can to abused women, MacDouggall's point was that the "objectification of girls and women is at the heart of intimate partner violence." Strong point. The pin-up girls became the focal point of the can which is only exacerbated by that can being filled with alcohol, another key factor linked to abused women.

At first, the billboard started innocently enough (again, to me), showing the can and stating, "A beauty of a price." I say let that slide because it referenced the 15 cans for under $20. Then it was "Sure beats looking at your buddies." Okay, a little edgier but we all have ugly buddies. If you don't, you are the ugly buddy. (Oh shit, I'm the ugly buddy...)

What started as a "it's a pretty girl on the can so
what's the harm?" thing to most of us guys took
a turn for the worst. Sleeman's eventually pulled
the ad campaign and quietly redesigned the cans.

Then it got blatant. "Free girl with every can." Followed by "Our girls are easy to pick up."

So now, the ad agency made it no longer about beer but rather clearly the pin-up girl on the can. See, that's the problem with being an older, white male. When it's blatant, we totally see it. But when it's really subtle, someone else, usually a woman, has to say to us, "Okay, this is going in a bad direction because..." We can learn, yes, absolutely, but regardless of age or generation, we guys need a little help from time to time. That said, you are never too old to catch up. And beer should be about beer, not "babes and boobs." So, as you can clearly see above, Sleeman's relented and redesigned the cans. You won't be seeing the pin-up can on the truck. It no longer exists. And if you don't believe continued social media pressure and standing up for what you believe works, well, think again.

Which brings me to the beginning of February when well-known Ontario beer blogger Ben Johnson wrote a piece about sexism on craft beer labels in this Province. He ignored Sleeman's, I'm sure, because they're a big guy and Ben doesn't give a shit about the big guys.

Cameron's Brewing Cask Nights are what craft
beer get-togethers should be. Men and women, all
of whom love great beer, getting together in a
happy, fun and safe environment. When I asked
this young lady if I could take her picture, holding
up her Cameron's glass, she was happy to do so...

But he singled out five labels he deemed sexist and went to the brewers. He interviewed the female owner of a brewery which had one of the labels and asked why. He interviewed women who love craft beer and asked them how they felt about the issue.

It was, frankly, an exhaustive piece of work with phenomenal research on his end. At first, I didn't quite agree with two of the five but that was just my personal opinion. The other three, yes, absolutely. But I will tell you this. I began wondering if I had become selective in my view... you know, below-the-surface, maybe a little more sexy than sexist (meh, what's the harm?) versus overt sexism (okay, now that's bad). But then, I just realized they were varying degrees of the same thing. Sexism. It doesn't matter if the burn is first degree or third degree, it still hurts.

But besides that, when I had a chance to talk to Johnson at Great Lakes' 30 Anniversary Party on February 16 for maybe 30 seconds, I stressed one point as a former journalist. I told him that he did the toughest thing an investigative writer could do. He held the feet of brewery friends to the fire in the name of an honest answer. There is nothing tougher for a writer than building personal and business relationships (in my former case, politicians and city officials; in his present case, craft breweries) only to come after them when you think they've done something wrong.

"So, wait, it goes Blue Jays closer, panda bears
and THEN the bribery question? This is hard."

Back in my day (said Grandpa Donny), I used the lob-lob-fastball routine in the opening line of questioning. Start with "The Blue Jays just need a good closer and they're in the playoffs, am I right?" Follow with another lob. "So panda bears. They're my favourite bear. How about you?" And when they're softened up, the fastball. "So, anyway, about that $37.5 million you've been charged with allegedly stealing from the city treasury..." (You always had to say "allegedly." You're a reporter, not a judge and jury.) Not Ben. He got right to it. Jumped to the matter at the start.

I'm not knocking Sleeman's here as I was one of the guys who for years had no issue whatsoever with the can. I have a couple of buddies and many, many customers who bought the beer because of the pin-up girl can. And to be brutally frank, when I Googled "sexist beer labels," I came across one lady's Pinterest account called precisely that and most were far worse than these cans. But that's back to the degrees issue, isn't it? Still, while you can't paint an entire gender with one brush, clearly there are many women out there who find this issue a rather large and contentious sore point.

Perhaps Rosie the Riveter imagery would be a little more
empowering for the women in the craft beer industry? Or
am I falling into the same trap? I think this is better but
then, as a male, it's not up to me to decide what works here.

But still, I'm in a unique position where I work as the pin-up cans were just being phased out. I could simply ask women buying Old Milwaukee what they thought. In the end, that only ended up being four women, ranging in age from 20 to 24. The first was the funniest. "I think they're stupid," she said, adding with a smile, "but I'm buying them for my boyfriend... who's also stupid." (I like her sense of humour.) The other three were fine with it. Well, until I threw in the billboard slogans. Two shifted quickly into the "That's not cool" camp. But the fourth remained resolute. "If your biggest problem of the day is a little picture on a beer can, you've had an easy day." Fair enough as everyone has their own take.

But I'll include the link to Johnson's piece here as not every woman is as laissez-faire (French for "live and let live") as the last young lady. You may agree with it. You may not. Or maybe, like me, you'll see your attitude adjust a little about the issue by the end when you read the opinions of women who could well be our wives, our girlfriends, our sisters, our cousins, our daughters and our nieces. While I handled the above issue with some light humour, that's just my writing style. Ben's is much more straight-forward. Take a look at it here: Ben Takes On Sexist Craft Beer Marketing. For me, this all started simply with a truck. A super cool Japanese dragon art truck. Possibly with lasers. But that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...