Posted on 06/22/2004 2:31:47 PM PDT by Clear Rivers
By Kate Santich | The Orlando Sentinel
You've seen him in TV commercials. He's the guy who can't open a pickle jar or take care of his kids, the husband raised by wolves, the balding, portly fellow who leaps for joy now that a pill has solved his impotence. He's the one scalded by hot coffee and hit in the crotch with a bowling ball, though he doesn't seem to mind.
In the powerful dominion of television advertising, this hapless, sloppy, beer-drinking punch line is the modern American man.
And critics say he's getting more than his fair share of abuse.
"If anything like this was happening to blacks or women or Jews, it would be considered a moral crime," says Warren Farrell, a California author and men's rights advocate. "We're being flooded with advertising in which either a male is being hit by a female, or the man is simply the jerk."
Farrell, author of "The Myth of Male Power," is one of a small but growing number of men -- and a few women -- protesting what they consider sexist, stereotypical and even mean-spirited ads. Male-bashing, they claim, is the last politically safe perversion.
"At this point in time, if advertisers served up women the same way that guys are treated, it would be world war," says Steve Feinberg, chief creative officer at the Seiden Group, a New York ad agency. "Advertising has cycled its way through that. Right up through the early 1980s, (the message to women) was 'Spend all day obsessing over whether you have the right toilet bowl cleaner, because that's how you define yourself.' But you can't do that anymore."
Late last year, a 40-year-old New Hampshire engineer and father named Richard Smaglick launched the Society for the Prevention of Misandry in the Media -- misandry being the seldom-heard counterpart to misogyny. Among his first efforts was a boycott of the clients of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi because of a spot it produced for Wyeth FluMist. In the ad, we see Mom laid up in bed, felled by the virus, and Dad in charge of the household -- much to the glee of the kids, who march off to school in a snowstorm dressed as if for a luau. Alas, poor Dad can't manage his own children.
On a Web site for the Men's Activism News Network (MANN), readers have compiled a list of companies to boycott for their allegedly male-bashing ads. Ironically, the list includes perhaps the ultimate macho-man vehicle, the Hummer, which aired a spot showing a woman behind the wheel and a tagline that read: "Threaten men in a whole new way."
Imagine the fallout, a man said in a post, if the roles were reversed, and a man were encouraged to "threaten women in a whole new way."
It's a point well-taken, says Matt Campbell, one of the site's administrators. "To get a sense of why there is a group of men finding the state of affairs so outrageous, just switch the gender roles for a minute and see if it would still be funny. Imagine having a laugh track when a woman's genitals are attacked."
Ironically, most of the offending ads are created by men.
"They think it's their way to be feminists. They think women want to see men as dogs and pigs, and everybody can have a good laugh," says Barbara Lippert, critic for the trade publication Adweek.
And if there hasn't been an outcry until now, some advocates say, it's only because men who complain are labeled wimps. Their masculinity is questioned. But until large numbers do protest, until companies are hit in the pocketbook, they're not likely to change.
Homer Simpson ??
No wonder more American men are finding foreign women attractive.
It's obvious why they get away with it. Men don't whine all day about how they're being portrayed, because we're too busy doing useful stuff.
Flame on.
Men
Against
Amazonian
Mastery.
Metrosexuals, most likely.
Example, the Hertz rental car comercial where the black guy standing in line berates the white guy who is angry at having to stand in a long line.
I am quickly converging to the point of totally yanking all commercial television programming.
The thing is - women don't need men... They can buy frozen sperm on internet !
Good post !
This is why I TiVo everything I watch. I skip over all of the man-bashing commercials.
Television is a massive insult to the intellect to anyone with an IQ higher than room temp. The only power these TV execs have is the power you give them. Boycott them (like many 18-45 year old males are) and what they think or do becomes meaningless.
A thought just occured to me - perhaps the male bashing seen so frequently is in response to viewer demographics - men aren't watching (or buying sponsor's products), and catering to the easily influenced Oprah crowd means lots of advertising $$$$ ?
When it inevitably happens, we look at each other and say "Boy those, stupid white people!"
LOL ...Thanks folks.
I thought it was monkeys and pigs.
Pleeeazzzze you mean women... stop making fun of us men....purty please? whaaaah, sniffle....
great way to attract women huh?
This kind of crap doesn't bother me because I am able to laugh at myself. I don't have a chip on my shoulder and don't view myself as a victim.
We are the last people left on earth, who are mature enough mentally and secure enough in our image of ourselves that we can not only laugh at our selves, but not be offended because others laugh along. We are setting an example for those insecure, whiney, hung upon self, picked on feeling, poor me spewing, demanding unearned respect, pathetic critters to follow, assuming by some miracle they ever grow a spine and reach some similence of maturity.
As long as they are busy laughing at us (their superiors in everyway) they won't have time to blame our successes for their failures.
What was Al Bundy's men's group called?
Hello?! I would be TOTALLY lost without my husband. We both need to work full time and he is right in there being domestic. We both do laundry, clean house, change diapers, check homework, shop, cook, etc. My husband is a blessing and I pray I won't ever have to do it without him. We make an amazing team!
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