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.
Ever notice it's always the white guy who's the moron?
I like the mini-van commercial where the guy can't figure out how to fold down a baby carriage so it fits in the back, while his wife completely readjusts the interior seats. Once she is done she comes back to rescue her (apparently) clueless husband, readjusts the seats again so the carriage can fit without having to be folded down, then says something like "Hon? You comin'" as the man looks on like the proverbial open-mouthed fool.
Uh-huh.
Well sometimes its a black guy, like in a SW airlines commercial where one black guy is painting his house, but is inside taking a break, and his neighbor (also black) comes out with a leaf blower and covers the newly painted side of the house with grass clippings and leafs.
But it's almost always a man that looks stupid.
IMneverHO
The worst offenders are the "Ad Council".
Their anti-white ads show a white guy using many foreign accents to try and rent an apartment.
In the ad, every culture is discriminated against until he makes the call as a white guy.
This is not even thinly veiled.
I know the one you're talking about. Maybe I'm stereotyping, but I've been married to two women. One could barely find her a$$ with an Indian guide. The other couldn't.
Yeah, I can see how a young 10 yr. old kid that's addicted to certain TV shows would tend to believe that black females (especially Oprah) are totally ominpotent creatures. Kinda makes one wonder what effects this conditioning will have on their thought processes as they enter into adulthood and why is this happening?
Holy cow!!! I've been complaining about this for years! Just look at any commercial, or TV show, for that matter. Almost EVERY time a man is on TV, he's a bumbling, stumbling moron. And lo and behold, there's always a woman that has to come to his rescue.
You've got that right.
Happily married abroad in 1997.
>> Almost EVERY time a man is on TV, he's a bumbling, stumbling moron.
"Everyone Loves Raymond" comes to mind. Same with that other CBS show with the UPS driver guy--"King of Queens" is it? I've only seen a couple of reruns.
I happily married "a broad" also...twenty yrs. ago and still going strong.
>>And since almost all we watch is Football, Fox News or NASCAR
I know. I watch Fox, hockey, bike building shows, and sports car racing and that is about it. Still all the ads are pretty much anti-male. Like all those Enzyte commercials. Do I really need to see those 4 times an hours during a 6 hour race?
I hear that whistling from that series of commercials and have to switch channels.
I do enjoy the Miller and Bud political lampoon commercials. Those are hilarious.
What about the Adelphia ads?
In one ad, there is a cute little chicky that is standing in front of 3 moronic sloppy jerks, and she calls them losers.
In the other ad, a guy and his family are all together, and suddenly the poor slob is struck by lightning. At the end of the commercial, there is a family picture with them all smiling, but he charred and his hair is standing on end, from the lightning.
Actually I have consistently enjoyed playing the idiot in situations.
Seems to me that no matter what I did, there was still a breed of people who treated me dismissively.
Well, since they expected an idiot they got one. This seemed to get them more mad. Strange.
As for me, I got lots of laughs out of it.
Where I live most of the plum construction jobs are now going to hispanic men, and if you don't speak spanish, you can fugeddaboudit.
A Few years ago somone pointed out to me that most all the bad guys on Law & Order are white men. Since then I have noticed that to be very accurate. Even the episode where they profiled a character in the likes of Michael Jackson, they made the character a whte male. Ripped from the headlines my butt.
Because the commercial media depicts the men as buffoons?
Personally, I prefer foreign women - especially Brazilians and Bolivians - because of their feminine charm, naturally sexy ways, and world-class booties.
Yep, another one of my favorite commercials.
My buddy is a realtor and said that because of commercials like that, realtors and mortgage companies get frivilous lawsuits from leeches that claim "housing discrimination."
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