Are Women Ever Portrayed as Really Moronic in Commercials?

Cafe Society
41

The man doesn’t have to be stupid in an absolute sense, he just has to be stupider than the nearest female. That’s because women make most buying decisions, they always identify with the woman in the commercial, and they like to see themselves portrayed as superior. It’s surprising that it took the advertising industry so long to figure this out, but they finally did and boy are they running with it.

The classic situation is a middle-aged white guy having all sorts of trouble with his cell phone / computer / PDA / whatever, because he foolishly bought Brand X, while a wise minority female steals his sales lead, because she bought Acme.

And if that setup bothers you, don’t watch kids’ shows. The authoritative white male bit the dust when Mr. Rogers died. The “adult” character in any situation will be a minority or a female, most likely both. In the show “Jakers” (one of my kids’ favorites), the kid pig characters often have to have things explained to them by Don Toro, a Spanish bull. Which is fine, except that the show is set in rural 1950s Ireland. Maybe Don Toro was one of those Black Irish you hear about who were supposed to have been shipwrecked from the Spanish Armada.

42

Really? I remember a commercial for window blinds where a woman and her friend are admiring her lovely window. Outside we see the husbuffoon trying, and failing, to light the barbecue and rapidly laying waste to the entire backyard. This guy is so stupid he has not mastered fire. And apparently it’s to be expected, too, since neither woman seems to even notice that anything out of the ordinary is going on.

43

I don’t recall ever seeing that one. I don’t watch a great deal of TV, but it’s certainly been my perception that the “Clueless Husband/Smart Wife” thing isn’t as much of a stock standard formula here in Australia as it appears to be in the US.

44

There was one a few years ago where a man was grocery shopping and had to call his wife on his cell for every single decision. It ended with him being asked by the cashier “paper or plastic?” He calls his wife, she hangs up and he looks at the cashier and says pathetically that “she hung up”.

I have no idea what the commercial was for, possibly cell phones, but it was the worst example I have seen of the stupid man-child.

45

There was a DiGiorno frozen pizza commercial featuring a ditzy blond woman trying to pronounce then name before giving up and proclaiming “It’s French.”
There was a Bacardi commercial featuring a ditzy woman why couldn’t figure out that two guys had forgotten her name.

46

I remember one from my childhood, when they were transitioning to flip-top cans instead of pull-tab cans, and the soda commercial highlighted that it was so easy, a woman could do it!

Because women typically don’t have the strength to open a soda can.

I know, weak isn’t moronic. But that commercial’s been bothering me for thirty-five years.

47

Go back a few decades, and watch some sitcoms. Particularly I Love Lucy. In every single episode, Lucy is shown as a blundering idiot, and “charmingly” naive, from what I recall. This sort of thing changed in the 70s, when women got to be the more intelligent of the sexes.

This was also quite common in written media…women were frequently portrayed as dingbats.

48

I think that’s a different dynamic at work. American TV comedies are usually about how the wacky lead interacts with the reasonable supporting characters. Lucy wasn’t an idiot, she was the star.

49

For those saying that the reason this is done in advertising is because women make most of the purchasing decisions and the advertisers want to show them as smart/superior, I think that is BS.

Since sitcoms also frequently portray the husband as a buffoon, while his wife is the wise one, are we to also conclude that women make up the majority of sitcom viewers and the writers want to suck up to them?

Here’s my theory: Commercials, like sitcoms, want to be funny and quirky, most likely because they think that this creates memorable scenes that viewers are more likely to remember and thus have the brand imprinted in their memory.

One of the “funniest” things for humans is to make fun of other humans. That’s why in the old days there were so many jokes about Polish people, Irish, etc. In virtually every country, there is one class/race of people who are considered stupid and are the stars of many jokes involving stupid people. Now that some countries, like the US, are trying to be more politically correct, it is not considered proper to tell such jokes, at least not among people who are not your close friends (e.g. at work or among plain acquaintances).

Since it’s funny to have one class/race of humans be the butt of a lot of jokes (because then the joke builds on all the other jokes you heard about this class/race and makes it funnier) and since it’s not proper to make fun of women or minorities anymore, the only target left are males (usually white males, but in a black-only environment, it’s OK to make fun of the black males)

That’s why sitcoms and commercials now show men as buffoons and women as wise: because it is considered funny as part of a long running joke that men are stupid (like Polish jokes are considered funny as part of a long running joke that Polish people are stupid), and it is one of the last classes of people whom we can make fun of in polite company.

Some holes in the above theory
[ul]
[li]The existence, and acceptance by society, of “dumb blonde” jokes is a bit baffling. Why is it not OK to make fun of women in general but is OK to make fun of blondes? [/li][li]Several sitcoms from past decades also showed men as less smart than their wives, [/li]so this is not a wholly new phenomenon.
[/ul]

Despite the above holes, I think that, overall, that is why we see dumb men and smart women in ads today in the US, and not because of the purchasing power that women have.

50

“Husbuffoon” - I like that. We usually just call the men in commercials an “idiot man-child.”

One thing I’ve noticed about how women are portrayed (and this might just be in Kraft commercials, the worst commercials on the planet) is that apparently women like to lie about everything, right down to which cheese they use in lasagna. That’s not really flattering, either. I’ve seen that Glade commercial, too, where the woman is lying about her scented candles. I’m not entirely sure where advertisers got the idea that women lie about every little thing - maybe from women lying about their age and weight?

51

“Oh dear, my butter’s too hard. I know, I’ll soften it over an open flame/with a blow dryer/in the clothes dryer blah blah.” The women in this commercial are pretty dang moronic. I guess it’s supposed to be funny, but I hate it.

52

I just saw that, and I don’t think they are portrayed as moronic. They have a tough problem and are finding “practical” solutions to it (with the exception of the last one, who throws butter in the dryer, which is pretty moronic)

Also, note that even if one concedes that they are portrayed as moronic, there is no “wise man” that comes around with spreadable butter to show how stupid the women are, which is the usual theme of dumb men ads (i.e. a wise woman comes around and shows them how stupid they are by using a superior product)

53

There is often a wise man who comes along with a solution to a woman’s problem, such as Mr. Clean. Mr. Goodwrench. Mr. Whipple. The Purina dog food guy who tells the hopeless housewife she may need to get Fit & Trim.

54

Mr Clean is a cartoon

Mr Goodwrench: “Beginning in 1996, the brand was changed to become GM Goodwrench Service Plus, dropping the “Mr.” and the human representations.”

Mr Whipple: “is a fictional supermarket manager featured in television commercials and print advertisements that ran in the United States and Canada from 1964 to 1985”

So, these are from a bygone era, not present-day ads.

Also, in these ads are the women portrayed as doofuses with the intelligence of a 3-year-old until the “wise man” comes to save the day, or are the women portrayed as regular people getting help from an expert in the field?

55

Not true.

But…

Only black women are allowed to make black men look stupid in TV commercials. :stuck_out_tongue:

eta

Now that I think about it, it’s the same for Latinos and Asians too. Minority women are allowed to make their cranky, stubborn, clueless- about- whatever husbands to look stupid.

56

I would argue Mr. Clean and the Brawny towel guy aren’t wise men telling women what to do. Rather, they’re fantasy men who, in a way, do the work for women. Those guys are your cleaning boyfriends, not a man telling anyone what to do.

57

Every commercial that has a doofy man has a woman who loves doing housework. Personally, I’d call that a draw.

I’m starting to believe that men really do feel insulted by the doofy man commercials. I am glad to see that. Maybe that will lead to fewer men playing the incompetent card whenever they’re asked to do a chore. I know they do it so that competent wife won’t ever ask them to do it again, but hey, do it enough and you’ll get a reputation as a doofus.

levdrakon, I just watched a few Mr Clean commercials. While he does come along and save the day, it’s only by conjuring a cleaning product, which the woman then gets on her hands and knees and uses herself.

58

Charles Schulz was once asked why Lucy was so mean.

He said, “Because when a little girl hits a little boy, that is funny. When a little boy hits a little girl, that’s NOT funny.”

In today’s poltically correct world there is a pecking order. White men are at the bottom. Notice that if you have a minority (black or Asian) and a white guy the white guy is stupid.

If you have a stupid black guy than it must be because the commercial has a smart black woman in it.

You want a commerical that sells, but you also want it to offend as few people as possible. So you play it safe, no one is ever gonna say a white male is an marginalized group. So it’s easy to make them the butt of the jokes.

Then it goes next to men in general be the black or Latino or Asian. The it goes up to women.

59

Now THAT was hilarious, it gets my vote for best post of this thread.

But there have been many other good ideas posted. I’ll add the woman who is waaay too upset over her family’s rollover minutes…

60

It’s really not changing, either, is it? The only cleaning product commercial I can think of with a man in it is the Magic Eraser commercial with a whole bunch of people cleaning stuff all over. I’ve noted in my age group (early 40’s), the women almost exclusively are still responsible for all the housework, with their husbands/boyfriends “helping out” to various degrees. I don’t know if these commercials are reflecting society or guiding it.