I feel like I can’t get away from them. Pretty much every commercial I see is harping on a stereotype. Either men are shown as buffoonish and childlike opposite women (case in ultimate point - the cell phone commercial where the family as at the dinner table and the father is texting his children until his wife scolds him and takes his phone away), or, and this is common in fast food commercials, some white guy is doing or saying something bizarre, and his diverse coworkers are tolerating him patiently.
I know that just today I’ve seen four commercials like this - taco bell, the phone commercial, the windows with the shutters inside them, and this DVD battle-of-the-sexes board game (where the girls all instantly knew who Harrison Ford played in the Fugitive, but none of the men knew about the four Cs of diamond shopping). Do any others come to mind?
Didn’t you know? White males are the only group remaining that are not covered by discrimination acts at all. It is perfectly and completely politcally correct to make fun of them, lampoon, name-call, and otherwise malign them in any shape, form, or fashion you wish. No agencies will be contacting you regarding a defamation suit.
So yes, I’ve noticed it, too. Too many commercials to count. The white guy is ALWAYS the butt of the joke.
I’ve noticed a tendency for middle aged blacks to be featured in ads for bowel and indigestion remedies, backache pads, and other conditions Best Not Mentioned In Front of Company. Someone otta sue!
The worst man-at-room-temp-IQ ad I saw was for some toilet paper where a man was confronted with the horror of the empty toilet paper roll. Instead of looking under the sink for a spare roll or finding an old towel in the hamper, he points at the bare dispenser and whimpers like a two year old confronted with his first dead squirrel in the backyard: “Hunnnnny??? HUNNNNNY!!!” (pointing and uh-uh-uh-ing the buttwipe bin). Take the glue eater out to the backyard and shoot him in the base of the skull.
I wish it ended like that. Of course, the all-wise wifeperson bounces in with a fluffy roll of Kitten Bum Fluff and gives him that “Oh, you silly *man[/], you!” look that is suppose to feed into the latent misandry of the female toilet paper purchaser of the alleged average household. Gah.
Yep…noticed it for years. And unfortunately, so have many of the women I know, and it seems that many people are starting to confuse commercials with reality.
I’ve noticed that too. Since they test most commercials they must appeal to a certain segment of the population that they want to buy their product or they wouldn’t use them. That’s pretty scary.
Speaking as a middle-aged white man, let me point out that white males are the only group (please correct me if I’m wrong) who are not judged by the actions of individual members of the group. This of course is not true of sub-sets of white males such as fraternity members, bikers, etc…
It may be less blatant now than it has been in the past, but if a woman or an “ethnic-looking” male walks into a job interview (as an example – assume it’s a sales or marketing position) they will be judged by their qualifications, but there are certain, mostly unspoken, assumptions made about them based on their group membership (whatever the stereotypes of that group may be). A white male walking into that same interview doesn’t carry the burden of stereotypes about white males, he is only judged on his qualifications.
In addition, if you’re going to make fun of someone, it is (and probably should be) more acceptable to make fun of the powerful. White males and hold the vast majority of positions of power in the country, both in the government and in the private sector. The only fields in which minorities are well represented are in sports and entertainment, arguably the only fields that are true meritocracies…
Jaochai, the term you’re looking for is “idiot man-child,” who is stupider and less effective than any woman or child around him. That’s his wife over there, Emasculating Bitch, who slaps his pee-pee in front of anybody at any time. I’m sick to death of these stereotypes; I don’t find them even slightly funny or entertaining.
There is a commercial I see occasionally that sticks out for me (some phone company), because the father is actually not stupider than his children, he doesn’t instantly jump to fulfill the whims of his children, and his wife backs him up in front of the children. Unheard of!
I despise this type of commercial as well. I personally think these commercials are insulting to EVERYONE involved, including the women. Yeah, the guy is depicted as a moronic man-child, but in return, his wife is a shrewish harpy who treats her husband as if he is a 5 year old and she is the worst mother ever. Can you imagine these people’s sex lives? “No, Johnny, how many times have I told you not to touch that?!” What a fate.
Yeah - women. The way they see it, in most households the woman is generally in charge of the smaller purchases… which is why you never see stupid white guys in car commercials. Women buy toilet paper, men buy SUVs.
To me the problem is that TV ads have quickly gotten worse and worse over the past decade or so. I really noticed it start when the dot.com boom was going full steam. This was when a whole lot of 20 and 30-somethings got a whole lot of money and power all of a sudden and started controlling the marketing and advertising of stuff.
Suddenly, commercials were just a lot more spiteful, mean, nonsensical and often completely off-the-point. So much so that you often might ask yourself after seeing one, “What product was that ad for?”
But the whole unfunny, deadpan, faux-ironic crap has gone too far. I am sick to death of the whole “silent, sarcastic glance directed at the oaf-like antagonist” theme.
I had a better description of these weak-ass copy-cat ads and a better rant against them but I just didn’t quite get it across. Sorry.
The whole point is this: in this era of spectacularly bad television advertising, the current theme is to have someone acting like an utter moron only to then be shown up by his wife, kids, friends, whomever. Because the person is acting so stupid, it is deemed poor form to make it a woman, child or minority. Therefore the oaf is a white male.
But the real problem is not that they are white males, it’s that the commercials are so horrible to begin with and keep using this lame, unoriginal gimmick over and over again.
Only if the interviewer is also a white male. The opposite holds true in most places. A while man being interviewed to work in a a muslim family owned factory? Their own racial stereotypes will be applied.
In the same way parents can see the differances between identical twins we differentiate within the group we’re most familiar with. Which is usually the group we’re a member of. Everyone else can expect to be treaded to certain assumptions.
(Group in the sence I’m using it is the person’s own definiation in their mind. Even the definition of whats in each group varies from person to person)
Yes to what essell said. For another example, see Europe. There are plenty of white people there, but a white American male is going to be quickly classified by many.
They don’t tell jokes about black people in Georgia anymore? I guess times really have changed.
I’m a white American straight Christian male baby boomer. And I’m not an idiot. I figure when people in other groups have faced discrimination against them that’s a hundred times worse than anything I’ve ever experienced, I’d be embarassed to complain about the occasional meaningless acts of discrimination that are directed against me.
“Hey, did you see that commercial? They’re making fun of people like me! Tell me that’s not outrageous!”
“I’ve had people spit on me in the street. My father was beaten because he wanted to attend high school. My mother had her house burned down. My grandmother was raped by a cop. And my grandfather was murdered by a lynch mob.”
“Well then, you can understand how I feel when I watch that commercial.”
Little Nemo
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The white guy is ALWAYS the butt of the joke.
They don’t tell jokes about black people in Georgia anymore? I guess times really have changed.
Now who’s making assumptions about stereotypes? It’s not ok to consistently belittle anybody, no matter what their group, IMHO. What’s so wrong about everyone being afforded the same curtesy? Why not spread the “humor” around so that women and minorities are the moroninc ones in commercials sometimes?
Oh yeah, then the ad writers might have to actually come up with a new schtick.
