There's a whole series of these three-part Beer-Curious ads; I call them "Schlitztryptichs." They all have strained, uncomfortable subtexts, and this one is no different - it's notable for the older man’s clenched jaw: repress! Repress homoerotic subtext! Repress! Repress!
Or is that a fair reading? Researchers have theorized that this represents one of the first ads to explicitly target a gay audience, since the intended consumers would know exactly what was going on: younger man, older wealthier man. Here the tagline - “I was curious” - shields the younger man from having an explicitly homosexual identity; he can ascribe the entire relationship to a “curiosity” and can move along to women once he’s found one who can better smooth his path into society.
You know, that is just the sort of paragraph that earns me a flame-mail from a really, really torqued 60-year old Schlitz drinker.
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