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By Sophie Lloyd
Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter
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Jon Stewart has criticized corporations for financially exploiting Pride month, telling viewers, "There is nothing corporations do that is not in service of their bottom line."
During Monday night's installment of The Daily Show, the comedian took aim at big-name brands including Target, Burger King, Skittles, and Oreo for their 2024 Pride campaigns.
Hitting out at Target, Steward joked: "Pride month means so much to them, that they set up one small area in their 20,000 square feet of store to sell you a Pride T-shirt they had made in Indonesia for 29 cents landed, because they believe so much in the cause."
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Stewart cut to a CBS News snippet on the announcement, in which the reporter said: "Target will be dialing back its Pride month merchandise this June."
"What?" Stewart said, showing the audience a photo of a print slogan T-shirt from Target's 2023 Pride collection. "How will I learn to live, laugh, lesbian?"
In May, the retail chain said that its annual Pride collection would only be available online and in select stores. The company faced a conservative boycott during last year's Pride month over its merchandise celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, leading to a sales drop of 4.83 percent in the second quarter of 2023.
The 61-year-old comic then jumped to a clip of conservative commentator Candace Owens, in which the TV presenter accused people who shop at Target of being "gay" and a "pervert."
"Even if I'm just getting paper towels?" Stewart said.
In an email, Owens told Newsweek: "I thought his comments were funny! It was a good-natured ribbing in a segment which delivered points that I agree with about the truer motivations behind 'corporate pride.'"
The host then lambasted Bud Light for backtracking following the conservative boycott in 2023. Shares of Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bud Light's parent company, dropped dramatically following its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April 2023.
The beer brand sent Mulvaney a personalized crate of Bud Light to celebrate her first full year of living as a woman. Conservative celebrities, such as Kid Rock and Travis Tritt, vowed to ditch the beverage, encouraging their fans to do the same.
The brand quickly released a statement that attempted to apologize for the partnership, angering LGBTQ+ activists while doing little to improve Bud Light's image with its consumer base.
Although Anheuser-Busch InBev's global sales reached $14.5 billion in the first quarter of 2024, the company's U.S. sales were still down by 9.1 percent, primarily due to the decline in Bud Light's popularity.
"Let's stop pretending that corporations can be woke or unwoke, or patriotic or unpatriotic," Stewart told the audience.
"Let's just let corporations live their truth, as the profit-seeking Patrick Bateman [American Psycho character] psychopaths that they are."
Newsweek has reached out to Burger King, Skittles, Oreo, Target, and Bud Light for comment via email.
Update 06/12/24, 12:00 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include comment from Candace Owens.
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