I actually agree with many of Der Trihs’s opinions. He’s a bit farther to the left than I, but I definitely tend in that direction.
But when Women come up, he goes all Neanderthal. There must be a story there.
Whenever you’re talking about the broadcast model of advertising (which is breaking down, by the way), you’re basically aiming a bazooka. No matter what you’re advertising, you’re forced into making decisions that will make assumptions about the prevailing habits of large groups of people. That way, the commercial makes as much sense to the largest group of people possible.
At some point, there was probably a creative briefing meeting where someone decided to take not much more than a cursory glance at the statistics, decide on all-male casting for a commercial where ~80% of the instances of the undesired behavior came from males. In a consumer product campaign where you saw this kind of a gender skew, you might decide to go all-male if the target audience was only 60% or 70% male. 80% makes it a lock.
So there’s my guess as to how this happened. As for the being offended part, I must say that with respect to the commercial I saw, I wasn’t really offended by the focus on the male gender. I was more offended at the other stereotypes - the commercial I saw had guys weaving down the highway with their vehicles filled up with their alcoholic beverage of choice. There was a redneck with a pickup truck filled with beer. There was a club-hopping dude in a sports car filled with booze and pills. I was more offended by that stereotyping.
But I was more offended by the notion that we have drunk driving commercials at all on the national level. I got to the line at the end of the spot about cops all over the country “stepping up” anti-drunk driving efforts and the spot lost all credibility with me. Who, exactly, is coordinating this nationwide police crackdown? Oh, please…
I agree with him a lot on politics, religion, and social issues. I agree that he really goes off the deep end about women, and says things that seem patently wacked out to me. I think any reasonable person can agree that society in general has warped ideas of gender roles and ideals, and both men and women suffer under them in different ways. This “victims v. victors in the gender wars” mindset is counter productive and frankly ridiculous. Painting me as some man-hating feminist because I disagree with this black and white characterization is particularly absurd.
I realize you were just talking out of your ass, but this proves nothing. Gender roles for females are enforced by other females, as well. It doesn’t mean that everyone isn’t participating.
Even worse, some blog that capitalizes bell hooks!
…unless you dare to watch some commercials not clearly aimed at a certain type of women (usually middle-aged with kids and house i.e. tons of buying power for necessary items).
A white man by the way.
It’s a simple case of Tee-Vee Quid Pro Quo. All the fat ugly men on sit-coms get robo-hottie sit-com wives; so for payback, men have to take the MADD brunt on the drunk driving PSA’s.
Works out pretty well if your Jim Belushi, actually.
I’d put forth that if they changed the ads to show the MEN doing the housework, more women would purchase said items!!
To be fair, the guy was the one driving, right?
Yeah, I’ve never gotten that. Was he Daryl Van Horne in a previous life? In particular I love how he doesn’t see rape as a terrible thing that happens to women (and sometimes men) but as a tool that women can use to make life miserable for any individual man without repercussions for said woman. It is to laugh.
Yeah, that was sort of a joke. I was waiting for someone to call the ad sexist (against men) when it was basically using a hot young ready-for-sex lady to trick (male) viewers into associating boners with car crashes. Though part of me thinks that’s so prevalent no one even questions it anymore. (IIRC the majority of Dopers shrugged at this ad. Yawn.)
Men being duh-duh about domestic duties reminds me a bit of men being thought of as pervs who shouldn’t even change a baby’s diaper. Both, especially the latter, are cause for concern and, on the Dope, often outrage. But it’s what happens when you decide women are just naturally better at child rearing and housework (and when someone at an ad agency finds out they actually get to spend money). Whether or not you’re fond of feminists, this be-all and end-all of genital/marriage role connection is a myth we’re trying to dispel. It’s not like we’re going ‘Yes! Score one for ladies! Now we’ll do ALL the housework and cooking so well, you’ll have to promote us all at work and let us decide what to do our bodies!’
Interestingly, the Sarah Haskins piece I linked to notes one thing – single guys still get hot mute models when they want beer or cars.
I realize maybe I wasn’t clear, but I was trying to parody/rebut athelas’ and Der Trihs’ allegations that the devaluation of men is perpetrated primarily by women. Of course women do it to each other, and women do it to men, and men do it to women… which is why I said that SOCIETY tries to construct and enforce these gender roles onto people, and everyone is affected.
Hmm…sounds like somebody’s got mother issues. Probably still living in her basement, as well. :rolleyes:
I do agree that we are sociologically conditioned to view women as the care-givers, the nurturers, the guiding light – whereas men are viewed as more treacherous, and represent the poster children for all mankind’s sins, from child abuse to Ponzi schemes. It’s a tough dichotomy that’s resisted all attempts to equalize the genders.
Ha! You win the thread. 
Again…people believing that TV is an exact mirror to life. From shows, news and commercials, when it comes to advertising dollars and ratings, anything on TV is made to be more outrageous than your typical day in order to get you hooked to watch. Making buffoons of men is the current mindset by ad agencies until it gets played out or until something more trendy comes along. Maybe cat juggling is next on the horizon.
Advice: Never take anything personally from anything on TV. Men and women alike. Just don’t do it.
It says the dude killed her!? I guess that counts… :rolleyes:
That was funny
Maybe, but in the ad I’m talking about, there were four or five scenarios. That added to all the others I’ve seen, I’m sure a woman would pop up in one SOMEWHERE? BTW, All The officers were men.
What if the video Cat Fight presented had a female driver who killed a guy… THAT POOR GIRL. :dubious:
I’m not even looking for them to go this far, I just want a goddamn woman thrown in every now-and-then.
I don’t think she was touching on how females influence other females. I think both are right.
YES. It certainly doesn’t make sense that you’ll NEVER catch a man doing house work. Perhaps men as a whole do it LESS, but in my experience with my family, it’s simply not at all true. And that’s what pisses me off.
Ah! Never mind then. I also like the rest of your post.
But when impressionable children watch it, it’s dangerous.
A Monkey With a Gun: When I replied to your post, and said; “you were just providing a great example of what Rubystreak is getting at.” It’s because of the attacks on my masculinity.
Edit: I hope I read everyone’s post accuratly. It was hard for me to catch up. If I missed the mark on anything anyone said, please tell me.
Nor do you have for yours. I wasn’t especially interesting in spending hours searching for a cite for a casual comment of mine; one that you’d just dismiss out of hand.
I’m saying that the statistics in question are distorted by prejudice.
No; it’s more that you wildly exaggerate any position that doesn’t portray women as angels and men as scum. If it’s reasonable to say that men don’t care about men, it’s if anything more reasonable to say that women don’t care about men. But everyone nods their head when you bash men, and calls me a “Neanderthal” when all I’m doing is saying that women are no better than men.
That’s a lie. I have said that lying about rape is a tool that women can use to hurt men at no risk to themselves.
I didn’t say that. That’s just your insistence that anyone portraying women as anything but morally superior is a sexist with a persecution complex.
A tired old insult. I never lived in my mother’s nonexistent basement, and she’s dead. And the last time I lived with her was as her live in caregiver while she was dying. And I’d rather appreciate it if you and others stopped trying to drag my dead mother into arguments as a weapon to bash me with.
Well, **CatFight **addressed that here when I asked if she meant to show another ad where a man killed a woman.
I guess if you get mad at only seeing male drunk drivers, you also have to take into consideration that when we see an ad using sex to sell, it’s usually a young scantily clad woman because that’s generally shorthand for sexy in our culture and when you target men, people tend to use scantily clad women. If you want to target men who, so it seems from this thread, tend to drive drunk more than women, doesn’t it make sense to use a man, not a woman?
Anyway. This thread is reminding me of the one where someone got upset that an ad for burglar alarms featured a white guy robbing someone’s house, instead of a black guy. You know, won’t someone please think of the poor white men who are constantly getting stereotyped as bad drivers and criminals.
Yeah, that’s why later in the post I acknowledged it… I should have edited it, instead of adding to it. :smack:
Sure, if men drink and drive more, they should be the primary target, but not an exclusive target. As I said, there were four or five scenarios, plus all the other PSA commercials I’ve seen. It makes it seem like women don’t drink and drive at all. They SHOULD throw in a female. Just like the Swiffer commercials, (and others like it), could use a guy in one or two of their ads. I’m not asking for it to be female-centric.
So, based on this thread, there are only two possibilities:
Men are evil and consider other men to be disposable, and cause them to repress their sensitive side.
OR
Women are evil and consider men to be disposable, and cause them to repress their sensitive side.
Okay, and in my experience, I just don’t really see how that’s possible. Yes, I’m sure a few women do lie but based on just how great the stigma is when it comes to reporting sex crimes where the woman hasn’t lied, I would tend to doubt that there’s no risk for a woman who has lied.