left in the lurch
by Douglas Messerli
Young & Rubicam (director) C'est la Vie / 1998 [commercial
advertisement]
In the 1998 French ad for Kronenbourg 1664 beer, a sexy
young man enters a busy disco, spotting a beautiful woman dancing on the floor,
moving over to her with the self-confident ease of a satisfied cis gender
sexist male who whispers something into her ear, assured that she’ll easily
follow his commands.
At the bar,
moments later, he orders up two Kronenbourg 1664 beers, presumably one for each
of them. But she quickly picks them both up and walks away handing one of them
over to her lesbian girlfriend.
“C’est la
vie,” blinks a neon club sign, and underneath it in English, the tagline: “The
best lager premium beer in France.
This was
one of three Young & Rubicam ads paid for by the French beer company to
fight its arch-rival, Stella Artois, which went with an image of being just for
ordinary folks. Here the beer courts a young hip gay-loving crowd. Even the man
left in the lurch has to smile at the audacity of the female beauty’s actions.
Los Angeles, January 20, 2026
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January
2026).
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