Here’s what I do for a living…I go into a large hangar, where there are at least 10 airliners docked. Airliners that you and your kids probably ride on. I get handed a job card to do some type of repair on that airliner. Chances are, it is someting I have never done before, so I have to figure it out, do the job and sign my name to it. I am very clever, conscientious and just a damn good aircraft mechanic. But, it still causes me a lot of stress.
DO YOU THINK I GIVE A FUCKING RAT’S ASS ABOUT HOW ‘MEN’ ARE DEPICTED IN COMMERCIALS?
GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS. LIFE IS NOT FUCKING TV.
What I meant to say was: What you see on television, i.e. men portrayed as dunces. It’s some dumb unreal depiction. It’s not something to get worked up about. It’s just TV. Now, if you were to to see or read about men in real-life situations behaving like dunces, that might be an issue.
The whole “men as idiots” as portrayed on various TV commercials or sit-coms is only pertinent to people who spend too much time watching TV.
It just doesn’t translate to real life, except to that small percentage who believe everything they see and hear.
This really jumped off the screen at me. While the statement is true, it doesn’t sound right. In my mind, and I’ll wager in the minds of most people living in the English-speaking world, the word “minority” really means “anyone who isn’t a white male”. Even when a white man goes somewhere that white men are uncommon, he’s expected to have some degree of relative power/wealth. From the white male perspective, we’re the only true non-minority out there. I can only imagine how this unconscious attitude has fucked up my worldview. I’m gonna have to contemplate this in the coming weeks.
Getting back to the original topic, I’d say that white men really are a teflon target. I can’t pick the right cold medicine? Yawn. A female teacher says that women are smarter than men? Of course she’s gonna say that; I knew it was bullshit when I was eight. Hell, you can call me a “honky” or a “cracker” all day, and say it as hurtfully as you can, and it won’t hurt my feelings.
Besides, not long ago, another doper (I can’t remember who, but I copied this into my quote book on my home computer [alas, I’m on a borrowed machine at the moment]) said something to the effect that commercials depict stupid men because women respond well to that kind of advertising. When men write commercials depicting men as stupid because it tricks women into buying the product, I’m not going to take offense.
I think we’re well, well past the point when women with college and graduate degrees should have flooded the “real world.” They’ve had a good 30 years now. I read a NYT article about this within the last couple years. Feminists are pretty disappointed with their sisters because they didn’t realize that all the rights and choice that women have obtained includes the right, and the choice, to not join the real world. Women have the right to get a PhD and the choice to not do anything with it. Be a wife & mom, instead. My sister-in-law is a perfect example of a woman who got a PhD in genetics but what she really wanted was to become a mother first chance she got and that’s exactly what she did. Never used her education. Ever. And she’d be the first one to complain men earn more money on average, while she’s busy controlling and spending all that extra money her husband is giving himself ulcers earning, in the exact same field.
Just imagine the outcry if any advert portrayed women as dummies,there would be riots,death threats and innocent men in the wrong place at the wrong time might be subjected to sexual abuse by gangs of outraged women… hmm sounds like hell.
I certainly hope that nobody makes an advert of that sort…
Shouting isn’t necessary if you have something of merit to say.
My head is not, and has never been inside my ass.
Since I’ve been living outside of television for 50 years sir, I realize that life is not fucking TV. I had a mild rant (as noted in my title) and had my say. Some here understood my point. Since little ones are influenced by everything they see, I wondered what effect this negative slant might have on them.
I don’t recall asking you anything, so I don’t have an opinion on what you give a rat’s ass about.
I generally don’t respond to… you know… morons, but I’m in a funny mood today.
Happy New Year kind and intelligent person. You have a real way with words.
Good points, brazil. It seems elementary to me, that there are two sexes, and both are necessary to make the world go 'round, but that idea seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way. I blame the media.
Look, commercials is my bread and butter. Nobody in the industry (well, at least here in Norway) and certainly nobody in the professional media believes the content of our commercials accurately represent reality. All that is done is using techniques to generate attention; even negative attention is sought-after. If the commercial keeps you watching to the end, you’ve seen our logo, our product, our price, our product’s edge and we always keep the product’s virtues seperate from the mentality of our “demo dummies.” You’ll know the product, be able to recognize it and it’s a hard fact of commercial dealing that the recognition factor is huge for a casual buyer when choosing between brands.
And this kind of commercial is handy; it’s cheap’o, easily understood and does generate a few laughs if done well. It also gives us the cheap option of using the reverse stereotype [the competent female mechanic, the competent male chef, the put-upon hard-working home-cleaning husband, etc] to give people ‘relief’ from the normal stereotype.
We build ourselves up and knock ourselves down, baby.
Excellent article, thanks for sharing it. In terms of the OP and the stupid man commercials, this part may help explain it (Baumeister, 2007):
It may pay off to insult men and motivate them to prove they’re men by buying your product, as respect is a limited commodity in male systems.
That begs the question though, to whom are these commercials directed? At men, to make them earn respect, or to a woman dominated system to make them feel good about themselves? Maybe a bit of both?
I just saw a commercial where a woman was portrayed as a “dummy,” as you put it. A man and a woman are out shopping. She always has 2 items to choose from, and shows both to her man, asking him which she should go with. He picks the one he likes better, but she always disregards his advice and chooses the other one. The last choice is between two cell phones. He tells her to take the blue one but of course she chooses the red one. Then he grabs the blue one, which is the one he wanted for himself, looking smug at the woman’s oh so predictably irritating idiocy.
No outcry from anyone about that commercial, even though it depicts the woman negatively. Personally, I thought it was a funny commercial (but I rarely find commercials offensive, anyway-- for once, I agree with Zambini), but it does play on the stereotypes of men and women shopping, and women as being contrary and capricious, thus easily duped by a man who’s onto them.
Where are all the man-hating feminists protesting this commercial?
Perhaps it’s because there are sufficient numbers of women who just enjoy thinking men are idiots? It’s very effective advertising to reinforce a customer’s prejudice.
I’ve dated women who expressed annoyance at how obsessed men are with spectator sports, but were curiously unimpressed when I told them that I wasn’t (I played and followed sports when I was younger, but I couldn’t tell you who won the Super Bowl last year).
It seemed that they’d rather have this predictable flaw to complain about than be forced to modify their prejudice (“OK, I guess some of you are smart enough not to care about that silly stuff.”)
I got “she’s an annoying twit who is inconsiderate to her boyfriend and totally clueless.” The whole shopping scenario plays on stereotypes, and the one of the woman is negative. My point being, advertisements are not exclusively biased against men; there are ones that mock women too, without the firestorm of controversy people claim would happen because of the rabid “feminists.”
I think it’s because ads & TV shows which portray women as incompetent morons are just so rare people don’t have time to get worked up over them or they die so incredibly fast no one notices.
There was this one commercial for a man’s moisturizer or something and the guy opened the bathroom cupboard only to be bombarded by jillions of girly products, so he closed the door, reopened it and found a lone, single guy moisturizing all-in-one product. That version of the commercial was immediately killed and replaced with an inept guy going for the cupboard and a woman’s voice-over saying “keep away from my stuff.”
The point was pretty clear. Don’t make fun of women and their products. Make fun of a man and tell him to get his own stuff - an all in one product dumbed down enough the woman isn’t going to have to worry about her man fucking with her stuff.
Really? I mean, there’s a chance the smiling, half-naked generibabes from most beer commercials are geniuses, but they’re not usually given the chance to plead their case.
Well, that’s an interesting point and worth discussing. We can’t EVER portray women as anything but competent and intelligent and yet - yet… we can have some “girls gone wild.” I dunno. It’s weird, isn’t it?
