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.
I don't see that with Raymond, he is the money maker. Debra stays home with the kids. Raymond is very funny, actually Debra acts and is very bitchy.
Bump
Actually, American women (and the rest of Western civilization) need American men very much.
In an America without men, American women impregnated by frozen sperm would be called "slave trade breeding stock".
I tried to relocate to Florida a year or so ago but I couldn't get any jobs as a manufacturing supervisor/manager because I couldn't speak Spanish. Unreal.
You're absolutely right. Western men are responsible for most of the advancement in the world, and most of the good things that the rest of the world is trying to emulate. Political systems, science, medicine, you name it.
Yep, you take a lot of heat from men and women if you do say something.
This is a true story. One of the most unpleasant jobs at my place of employment is having to change out the huge, heavy and potentially dangerous bottles of liquid nitrogen we use as coolant. Management decided, in their infinite wisdom, that women did not have to do this unpleasant, difficult and dangerous job. Nice, huh?
My husband won't watch TV anymore because of the bashing, and I don't blame him.
Gee whiz. Who the heck watches commercials? That's why stoopid men invented the remote control and 150 other channels to flip through during the times-out.
He might be the money maker, but his wife makes him look like a dunce in every episode.
And who is the biggest dunce on the show? Robert, the single policeman. He can barely walk without tripping.
Woodworking is my preferred method for escaping the TV as well. My wife loves it when I crank up the router and my dogs decide to "sing along". It doesn't bother me though - I wear hearing protection...
Hell, if it wasn't for pay-per-view porno, there'd be no reason to have a TV at all!
Yes, I'm joking.8^)
Oh it is funny though; actually Robert is a teddy bear. That is the only show I like. I keep the TV on for company in the kitchen.
I like Robert and the father. Both are always good for a laugh.
Still there is a certain emasculation of men on that show that creeps me out.
LOL!! Those Latinas do have some nice posteriors, don't they? ;-)
Peter Boyle he is a riot.
"Real men are getting beer during the commercials, and just don't care.... "
Wooooo - hoooooo ! I second that !
Look at Hollywood and all these single women (half of them lesbians) having these superior children - from a well screen donor sperm.
Jodie Foster comes to my mind....
The BRAVE NEW WORLD !!
that's my favorite too.
I sense this is going to become a major problem. My sixteen year old son insists he is going to marry an Asian female. My attempts to modetrate his attitude meets with the response that " girls of my age are all Sluts"
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