Washington Post: Dylan Mulvaney should be a role model
Washington Post: Dylan Mulvaney should be a role model
I’ve been a fan of Megan McArdle’s writing since she was with The Atlantic. She can be very good on economics, but her privilege starts to show when writing about middle America and flyover country. She is missing the point on Dylan Mulvaney.
At first blush, it seems as if conservatives have won a major victory in their war against so-called woke capital. After two weeks of growing backlash against Bud Light’s support for trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, the company’s chief executive came out with a non-apology apology: “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
Conservatives didn’t win a major victory. Everyone who just wanted a beer was now pissed off because buying Bud Light mean they were making a statement. It was too much. When a company takes a stand on a divisive issue, it divides people.
When the Black Lives Matter protests were going on, what could be wrong with taking an inoffensive middle ground by saying that all lives matter? BLM was pissed because “All Lives Matter” was taking their thing. By mirroring the language, a potent political message was to be made bland and inoffensive.
Budweiser’s problem is analogous. Bud Light is bland and inoffensive. Bring it to a party, and it goes unmentioned. It isn’t cheap and nasty Old Milwaukee or a trendy double IPA. When Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid decided to partner with the flamboyant Dylan Mulvaney, she was going for a potent political message.
Regardless of which side manages to mount a larger boycott in the dispute, one suspects that major brands will now think twice before diving into this particular culture war — which is, of course, exactly what conservatives wanted. Before they take a victory lap, however, they should ask what these sorts of maneuvers are doing to their own brand.
Why do companies do it? “Go Woke, Go Broke.” is a handy cliche because it rhymes and contains some truth. In some cases, companies can’t avoid getting involved. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee, the NFL couldn’t sit on the sidelines. Nobody was asking Bud Light to do anything. Completely unforced error, so why?
BlackRock is one of the world’s largest financial management firms. They own stock in everything and can influence corporate boards. In 2018, BlackRock encouraged CEO’s to serve stakeholders, rather than shareholders. Shareholders own stock in a company, so own a portion of it. Stakeholders are shareholders, along with employees, customers, suppliers, communities or practically anyone else. That is the camel’s nose under the tent. To support stakeholders, BlackRock evaluated companies based on an ESG criteria. That is, score them on environmental, social and governmental benchmarks. Companies go woke to maximize their ESG score, prioritizing their reputation with investment companies rather than their reputation with customers.
Mulvaney’s most outspoken opponent is probably Matt Walsh, a podcaster and columnist for the Daily Wire, a conservative news website.
Walsh was going after Mulvaney even before the Bud Light deal; in February, he delivered a rant in which he accused Mulvaney of “intentionally degrading women” with a “woman-face minstrel show routine.”
People who live on social media, may have been familiar with Dylan Mulvaney. Many young people live full and productive lives without much social media. Certainly plenty of middle aged and older do. I don’t know or care about Dylan Mulvaney, but when I saw the Bud Light move, I was pissed at them for taking a side.
Matt Walsh makes a good point about flamboyant cross-dressers like Dylan Mulvaney. At a time when blackface is taboo, dressing like a woman and accentuating the most egregious stereotypes is embraced. That must mean something about the power of different grievance organizations.
Whatever you think of Mulvaney’s transition, or her rather cloying girlishness, it’s easy to understand why she has accumulated more than 10 million TikTok followers over the course of her online transition: She makes life, and being trans, seem like such fun. She traffics not in anger or cruelty, but in whimsy and joy.
McArdle should know that whimsy and joy offer no protection against the mob. As an old white guy, nobody cares if something offends me, so I don’t view media with a victim mentality. I’m not black, so can’t say how this performance would viewed, but Al Jolson brought tons of whimsy and joy, isn’t mocking anyone in a recognizable manner and openly supported rights for black folks at a time when that was not a popular position.