ARE today's men incompetent, bumbling idiots? Judging by portrayals in some advertising, the answer seems to be yes - much to the dismay of some men.
The portrayals began as a clever reversal of traditional gender roles in campaigns, prompted by the ire of women and feminist organizations over decades of ads using stereotyped imagery of an incompetent, bumbling housewife who needed to be told which coffee or cleanser to buy.
As those images disappeared, the pendulum swung, producing campaigns portraying men in general, and husbands and fathers in particular, as objects of ridicule, pity or even scorn. Among them are ads for Bud Light, Domino's, Hummer, T-Mobile and Verizon.
The "man as a dope" imagery has gathered momentum over the last decade, and critics say that it has spiraled out of control. It is nearly impossible, they say, to watch commercials or read ads without seeing helpless, hapless men.
In the campaigns, which the critics consider misandry (the opposite of misogyny), men act like buffoons, ogling cars and women; are likened to dogs, especially in beer and pizza ads; and bungle every possible household task. Most marketers presenting incompetent, silly male characters say their campaigns provide a harmless comedic insight into the male mentality while also appealing to women. But men who describe themselves as rights activists are increasingly speaking out against the ads as a form of male-bashing, especially when the ads disparage the roles that fathers play in their children's lives.
"You can't routinely denigrate a given segment of the population mercilessly," said Richard Smaglick, a founder of an organization known as the Society for the Prevention of Misandry in the Media, which runs (fathersandhusbands.org), a Web site. "We're trying to wake up the industry to get business leaders to recognize that this isn't the way to build relationships with their customers."
Some critics label the campaigns a reaction to the political correctness that makes it no longer permissible to use stereotypes of women.
Paul Nathanson, who wrote "Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture," with Katherine K. Young, said the issue was larger than just what was presented in advertising.
"Negative imagery in advertising is part of negative imagery in popular culture in general," Dr. Nathanson said. "If you add up the way men are presented in popular culture, then it is a problem because the message is that that's what men are."
Then there are the longer-term effects, Dr. Nathanson said, asking, "How do boys form a healthy identity?" if they are constantly exposed to anti-male stereotypes.
Martyn Straw, chief strategy officer at BBDO Worldwide in New York, part of the Omnicom Group, offered an explanation.
"In advertising and in general communications," Mr. Straw said, "there is the notion that things that are 'negative' are always much funnier than 'positive,' which can get very schmaltzy."
"In order to not cross over the line into denigration," Mr. Straw said, the situation portrayed in an ad needs to be truthful and funny. If those elements are in place, he added, "it's not really bashing, it's just having a funny look at the way men work sometimes and the way they approach things."
Critics have compiled lists of ads they deem offensive. One Web site, Standyourground.com, in cooperation with the Men's Activism News Network, lists 30 brands it asks men to avoid buying because of what they regard as male-bashing advertising; the list includes Budweiser, Hummer, J. C. Penney and Post-it notes.
One of the companies most cited is Verizon Communications, for a commercial for its Verizon DSL service created by McGarry Bowen in New York. The spot shows a computer-clueless father trying to help his Internet-savvy daughter with her homework online. Mom orders Dad to go wash the dog and leave their daughter alone; the girl flashes an exasperated look of contempt at him.
A Verizon spokesman, John Bonomo, said, "It was not our intention certainly to portray fathers as inessential to families." The commercial has run its scheduled course, he added, and is no longer appearing.
In many ways, said Ann Simonton, coordinator of Media Watch in Santa Cruz, Calif., an organization that challenges what it considers to be racism, sexism and violence in the media, such commercials play on stereotypes of both sexes. For instance, speaking of the Verizon spot, Ms. Simonton said, "One might be able to interpret the women as being very nagging."
The Myth of Male Power
By KATE SANTICH
The Orlando Sentinel
07/07/2004
You've seen him in TV commercials. He's the guy who can't open a pickle jar or take care of his kids, the husband raised by wolves, the balding, portly fellow who leaps for joy now that a pill has solved his impotence. He's the one scalded by hot coffee and hit in the crotch with a bowling ball, though he doesn't seem to mind.
In the powerful dominion of television advertising, this hapless, sloppy, beer-drinking punch line is the modern American man.
And critics say he's getting more than his fair share of abuse.
"If anything like this was happening to blacks or women or Jews, it would be considered a moral crime," says Warren Farrell, a California author and men's rights advocate. "We're being flooded with advertising in which either a male is being hit by a female, or the man is simply the jerk."
Farrell, author of the 1993 book "The Myth of Male Power," is one of a small but growing number of men - and a few women - protesting what they consider sexist, stereotypical and even mean-spirited ads. Male-bashing, they claim, is the last politically safe perversion.
"At this point in time, if advertisers served up women the same way that guys are treated, it would be world war," says Steve Feinberg, chief creative officer at the Seiden Group, a New York ad agency. "Advertising has cycled its way through that. Right up through the early 1980s, (the message to women) was 'Spend all day obsessing over whether you have the right toilet bowl cleaner, because that's how you define yourself.' But you can't do that anymore."
Late last year, Richard Smaglick, 40, a New Hampshire engineer and father, launched the Society for the Prevention of Misandry in the Media - misandry being the seldom-heard counterpart to misogyny. Among his first efforts was a boycott of the clients of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi because of a spot it produced for Wyeth FluMist.
In the ad, we see Mom laid up in bed, felled by the virus, and Dad in charge of the household - much to the glee of the kids, who march off to school in a snowstorm dressed as if for a luau. Alas, poor Dad can't manage his own children.
Smaglick admits the boycott had little, if any, impact - Saatchi & Saatchi declined to comment - and he won't say precisely how big his group is. "I don't want our organization to be assigned its credibility or lack of credibility based on numbers," he says.
On a Web site for the Men's Activism News Network, readers have compiled a list of companies to boycott for their allegedly male-bashing ads. The list includes perhaps the ultimate macho-man vehicle, the Hummer, which aired a spot showing a woman behind the wheel and a tagline that read: "Threaten men in a whole new way."
Imagine the fallout, a man said in a posting on MANN's Web site, if the roles were reversed and men were encouraged to "threaten women in a whole new way."
It's a point well taken, says Matt Campbell, one of the site's administrators. "To get a sense of why there is a group of men finding the state of affairs so outrageous, just switch the gender roles for a minute and see if it would still be funny. Imagine having a laugh track when a woman's genitals are attacked."
Ultimately, whether men and boys take the images to heart, whether it affects how they feel about themselves, is debatable. But Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, authors of "Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture," say advertising merely holds up a mirror.
"We do see a statistical picture that tells us men are in trouble," Young says. "Their suicide rates are higher, their alcoholism rates are higher, they die earlier than women, and boys are dropping out of high school at much higher rates than girls are. The more negative imaging you get, the more it reinforces this. Boys can say, 'If this is the way society is going to look at us, we'll just act that way.'"
"The Myth of Male Power"
By Warren Farrell, Ph.D.
Random House, 371 pages softcover, $17.95
but there isnt a problem worth addressing since this is happening statistically to men....I dare to care........and if you have a problem with that......you can deal with the BOY cott the way the rest of em are gonna have to deal with it.............cuz we not gonna take it anymore...........Their suicide rates are higher, their alcoholism rates are higher, they die earlier than women, and boys are dropping out of high school at much higher rates than girls are
so, they feel free to shame me all they want and i should just sit there and take it.....screw ewe........I have no time for that noise. . Feminism has, for the first time in history, turned women from shaming individual men who are judged dishonorable, to shaming men in general and masculinity as an institution. And the very real danger in this is that if men come to perceive that there is no way for them to achieve honor, to be recognized publicly and privately as 'good' men, then they may sense that they have little to lose by taking what they want, since they have little to gain by restraining themselves.
and thus there was no open debate.......they started with insults and pretending that this issue had no weight and no import, but when that did not work they tried to minimize it, pretend it wasnt so bad...........When i brought other avenues of disabuse of men to prove that men were treated badly, you pretended to be bored by the repetitive nature of the argument.....to which i say, go away if you have nothign to add besides derision and disbelief......you want to prove me wrong, go ahead, you want me to shut up, i say screw ewe............."Feminism cannot survive an open debate."
-John Jones
Actually, Dana, while you do have a point, so do I.........However you've decided to help out your argument by asking one of the long-timer forum members and someone who posts with the upmost respectability if he's a rapist. I think that's a completely awful way to post. I generally try to follow the "discuss the issue not the person who posted it" rule. But iIn this case the issue isn't really the issue because of the way you've chosen to post it and how you've chosen to address the other posters.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/775987/postsPut on your bras, shave your armpits and quit your bitching.
Which you could as easily ignore as post at....no one twisted your arm, not yet, anyway.......You don't need to post 5 different threads on the same exact topic, that's not a discussion, it's a monologue.
no one made you post here and it may not be a suitable place for small children....this is a martial arts forum, not a kindegarden.........cant take the heat, stay out the tough issues..............Good god. Im surprised this discussion is getting as heated as it is.
THIS THREAD IS GAY!
and that is exactly why they attacked you personally, cuz they are encouraged to attack men (& women) who dare to raise an issue important to men, which is like putting a target on your back.......No question about it. . . you have a legitimate gripe.
