Jose Cuervo Is Not for Older Women

Man, don't you hate it when you just want to head down to the bar for a few shots of tequila with some hot chick, and instead there's an old woman, like, in her fifties, sitting there near the only empty bar stool? Gross.

Such is, more or less, the message sent by Jose Cuervo's latest blatantly ageist commercial, which plays on our culture's obsession with youth in an utterly obvious, uncreative, and insulting way.

The video has a cutesy little tactic of conjuring up a male fantasy: the narrator reads, "cue the lights. Cue the chairs. Cue the crowd. Cue the..." and so forth, naming the crucial elements of this scene until he gets to "cue the girl" whereby a cardboard woman pops up.

She is older and pretty, with sleek grey hair, a sly smile, and a slim figure. She is dressed well and seems inviting. But no, "not that girl," with a hint of condescension and smug distaste.

"That girl." That one is young, thin, in a tank top with her breasts pushed up. When she first swings up from under the bar as a cardboard cutout she has a surprised pursed-lips look on her face like a little girl. She is in her mid-to-late twenties, in her prime, so to speak. She's the girl we want. The message could not be any more obvious: are you beyond thirty, and not a cougar (the only version of sexuality we'll accept from older women)? Then you do not belong in the bar, and you do not fit in this bar scene.

Thank you, Jose Cuervo, for sending that message so clearly. Those of us over forty can stop drinking, give up, go home, and call it a day for our sexuality.

Check the video out for yourself below:

Photo credit: Heated Ground Photography