The commercial for JCPenney’s One Day Sale. Little kid in a high chair, banging spoons furiously, slinging food and milk all over the place, and crying his little heart out for attention. Right next to him sits advertising’s favorite cliche, SlugDad. Reading his paper. Can barely summon the interest or energy to turn his head and moan pathetically, “Where is your mother?”
God, this shit pisses me off. Most Dads are great with their kids, attentive and engaged. We have on the board too many fine examples of the best of American fatherhood to single out one or two. How can you stand this crap? Here’s one “gal” who’ll be skipping the sale, JCP!
[sub]OK, I wouldna gone anyway, I hate to shop … but you get my drift.[/sub]
Aaaaaaargh, the helpless/neglectful dad cliche. I loathe this, and the subtle and not-so-subtle stereotypes it reinforces.
Well, when this commercial pisses you off, remember the wonderful Motrin one… “There’s going to be a lot of headaches in this house…” where the kid is in his highchair banging the almighty crap out of two pot lids while dad is at the sink, doing dishes (doing dishes, gals!), banging away at the pots and pans, playing along with junior. Mom’s nowhere in sight, and they’re coping just fine. And he’s not “babysitting,” another term a loathe for when a dad is parenting on his own.
Right. According to the mass media, when women step into a traditionally male role they always have the talent to rise above the sexist attitudes and back stabbing to eventually succeed amid cheers and confetti. But when men step into a traditionally female role they are complete idiots and unable to handle even the simplest tasks. Pisses me off too.
I hate these types of ads- how loud would women be screaming if they showed them looking at a bunch of tools and saying “I can’t use these! I’m a girl!”
GRRRRR!
I hate the dumb men e-mail forwards, too. The last time my aunt forwarded me one, I mailed back and said “Please don’t send me items of this nature. I don’t appreciate women being put down, and I don’t enjoy putting men down.”
She has never sent another, and she apologized for the one she sent.
This, as many “experts” have said, is truly a woman’s world these days.
Shogun Haircut proposed to me his theory a few days ago that one day women will eliminate men, because “they don’t need us.” He had a whole elaborate plan worked out.
As for me, hell, I like guys, a whole lot. And if you lean closer, I’ll tell you a little secret.
leans over
::whisper:: Guys are a lot cooler than girls a lot of time. If I ever need anything (a shoulder to cry on, someone to laugh with) I go to a guy first. Always.
Ya’ll are pretty damn cool most of the time.
And I liked Zette’s approach to the dumb-guy emails. Yay, you!
Hmmm, the advertising seems to be aimed at women, who would likely object if they were portrayed in the way they were in the 50’s, cute but dumb.
You’d think women would be insulted by such patronising attitudes, even against men, seeing straight through the con trick.
Must work though 'cause they keep pushing the same shite at us all.
It may be cutting my nose off to spite my face but even if the product is great I won’t touch it if the advertising is so insultingly stereotyping and demeaning to either sex.
Fuck 'em they can get their money from the gullible.
Hey! Watching kids is HARD! Boy, do I know. I lost three of my own before I got this whole Stay-At-Home-Dad thing down. Well, actually I only lost two of them. The alligator ate that one, so that doesn’t count. Beware the Zoo!
More than once Soupo has gone all Destruct-O-Tron on me and I couldn’t wait for The Little Woman to get back from her jaunt to Penney’s to take the little bugger off my hands. Duct tape only goes so far. And scotch makes him puke.
-Rue.
What’s really weird is that my father is a better cook than my mother. I mean, she has some things she makes better than him-notably he really doesn’t do much baking or desserts, and her spaghetti sauce or her cream chicken beat his by miles.
But my father LOVES to cook. He experiments, he comes up with great ideas, and he usually makes really yummy food.
It’s pretty much S.O.P. to portray all men as weak, stupid and completely helpless these days (or worse) on the sitcoms, commercials, etc… whilst the women, of course, are able to leap tall buildings in single bound, all the while raising 6 kids and taming Wall Street on the side as a hobby. yawn
As a Marketing Major, I sit here frantically trying to defend the commercial.
The best that I can think of is that JC Penny assumes that their target woman thinks their husbands are aweful fathers (or assume all husbands are - if they dont’ happen to be married). These woman could look at their sale as time off because they are therefore forced to do all the work. There must be a big enough market that thinks this way and JC Penny must have done some research confirming this attitude pertains to a their target or they have pissed off the majority and are therefore screwed.
Either way, I flip when commercials are on anyhow and don’t put a great deal of faith in the fact that their views of society are true.
I want to point out that the effect of this type of advertising is not just to make men feel like shit, but to make women feel like shit as well: it sets up an impossible standard by which the woman is supposed to be super-competent all the time, never unhappy, and able to handle anything with a smile–including a lout of a husband who couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.
No one is super-competent all the time, but by presenting Superwoman as the “normal” standard it makes women feel like they must be lacking some basic quality that lets everyone else do it all so easy, wihtout ever getting any help from anyone, especially not bubba over there. Then the advertiser promises they they have a problem that can fix that.
Both sexes are really getting equally screwed by this whole advertising paradigmn. I agree wtih the boycott idea.
[singing] Have I tooooold you lately, that I looooove you??[/singing]. AAAaaaahh, Cranky, I bow before thee. Why?
BECAUSE you are SO on the money. HOW many times did I go food shopping with Zach in the stroller and Laura in the Gerry framed backpack, and some cockwrench would say, " ooh, Mr. Mom for the day? ". No, assmunch, Mr. Mom is a movie and I’m their father. I do this all day, every day that I’m not shooting, and since I do sleep deprivation better than the Ice Princess does, I do it at fucking 2:34am some nights too!! ".
Assholes. Anyway, bless your heart for nailing it so beautifully.
Mayberrydan,, I applaud your effort to try to figure out what Penny’s was thinking with this commercial, but I chuckle at the idea that shopping at Penny’s is “time off.” It’s Penny’s, fer cryin’ out loud. I go there to buy exotic items such as socks and shower curtain rings. I realize it is in Penny’s best interest to present sock shopping at their fine establishment in a positive light, but I fear for the day that my “time off” from household tasks is doing yet another household task.
I’m creeped out by the negative stereotype of the Slugdad, and also by the assumption that all women find shopping to be their recreational activity of choice.
The subtext is that women have to do the domestic chores that men, being so obviously incompetent at them, cannot be expected to do. In other words, we don’t care if y’all harbor a condescending chauvinistic attitude towards us, but DO get in their and rattle them pots and pans…
I dunno, I got a really nice dress with a matching denim top yesterday at Penny’s for 7 bucks-it was originally FIFTY BUCKS. Say what you want, Penny’s has great bargains.