Is it that men are being portrayed as idiots more and more these days in advertising? Or do the ads simply reflect broader media trends which portray men as idiots? Or is it just that it’s not PC to portray women as idiots, and thus men are the only remaining target? Or is it part of a trend of portraying adults/parents as idiots, which, when focused on, zeroes in on men (both as fathers and thus stereotyped heads of the parenting team, and as PC-acceptable targets)?
Or are men just being oversensitive idiots about it?
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Whatever it is, it’s torquing the crap out of my husband. There is one commercial that breaks the mold, though, for some cell phone company. Man has his kids out shoveling snow, is watching them from the cozy house, sipping coffee. His wife comes up, asks what’s the deal. He says, “I told them they could have unlimited minutes on their X cell phones if they shoveled snow.” Wife says, “But they get that already.” Husband says, “They don’t know that.” (insert pitch here) Then he sips his coffee and flinches, “Oo, I burned myself.”
Hilarious.
Aha! See! Comment before was written by a woman!
Actually, I think advertising is getting better about this. It used to suffer from SWM Syndrome. No, it stands for “Stupid White Male.” Now it’s just SM Syndrome, because black men can be legitimately made fun of now. So advertising has become, at least, less racist – even if it is still sexist.
Actually I was pointing out to your dad the other night the “make men (and dads) look like idiots” trend.
I get so tired of the male bashing. It’s not safe to be a middle-class white male in commercial advertising. I hate the one where the guy is shopping and can’t do it without having the Mrs. on the other end of the cell phone in his ear.
As far as the commercial with the kids shoveling snow – As a parent, that one cracks me right up. I look at the guy as ingenious for getting his kids off their butts while he’s warm and cozy. Depends on your paradigm, I guess.
It’s quite simple: when was the last time you saw a group of men
respond with enthusiasm when one of them said “let’s go shopping!”? You might notice that teen males seem to get the worst of it; that’s because for most purposes they’re not considered a very desirable marketing demographic.
Good point. Stats show some huge percentage of most retail purchases are handled by women; thus, they need to be excluded as targets of mockery (and a nudge-nudge picking at their “better halves” may be thought to thus score points).
Teen males would indeed get the worst of it, probably because most women don’t think fondly of males in their own teen past …