Men in Advertising Bias?

Everybody hates TV commercials, or at least the majority of them. Most of the people I've spoken with feel the commercials currently found on television are just plain stupid and that the ad execs must be running out of ideas. Well, it seems that there are a couple of constants in the world of television advertising, a couple of sales tactics that must work well since they keep using them. One is sex, of course, and I don't need to explain why. Another is that men are blithering idiots who could not function in life without their wife, mother or a child nearby to take care charge and make things better.

Until recently I'd never paid much attention to the fact that men were being portrayed as imbeciles in many commercials. While mindlessly staring at the TV one night, my wife pointed one out to me, then another, then another, then another - I admit I was surprised. I though maybe the demographic for the show we were watching might be "women age 18-35", hence the skewed perspective, but after watching several shows on several stations, I found it didn't really seem to follow any rules. Even on the cable channel for men, males are shown as foolish children with no problem solving skills at all. The women in their lives have all the answers and the man can hardly form the questions. God forbid a TV commercial mother has to leave the kids with Dad for the weekend - she'll be lucky if the house is still standing when she gets back! In many instances even the children are brighter than their father and they end up solving the problem or making the decision for the poor old, stumbling, bumbling boob they lovingly call Daddy; a common man without a lick of common sense. It's a stereotypical trend that doesn't appear to be slowing.

Let's spin the situation for a moment. Let's pretend that women were portrayed as morons in over half the TV commercials while men were shown as the brilliant, calming force in their pathetic little lives. Who would complain, anyone? More likely, EVERYONE. And rightfully so - there is no need for this kind of unbalanced advertising. They are almost screaming, "Men are fools! Men are useless without women! Men can't cook! Men can't clean up after themselves!" I know that women, unfortunately, haven't always had equal rights, but I don't recall anything in the history of television commercials displaying this sort of blatant disrespect toward women.

Maybe a little equal opportunity belittling is overdue? Perhaps tired of being seen as "domestic slaves", women have taken over ad agencies around the world in an attempt to degrade men into thinking they have no value without women? If so, they didn't have to go that far - we are already aware of the fact that for most of us, women make us whole. We don't need to be beaten over the head with ridiculous commercials showing a man who can't light his own backyard grill without blowing up the entire neighborhood. But, then again, what if it's not women portraying men like this, what if it's other men? There must be men in the loop somewhere, right? Who is the man that decides a commercial about cold medicine must have something to do with a woman coming to the rescue by giving her husband some cough syrup (and a brief lecture on it's benefits) because he just wasn't bright enough to figure out that he needed it himself? What's the matter with just telling us what the cough syrup does, how long it works and what it tastes like? Why scream, "Men are helpless!" in our faces for thirty seconds to sell it?

They play the "helpless idiot" card because it's supposed to be funny, and funny sells. "Where's the beef?" says it all. Funny sells and apparently some people think that an unbalanced portrayal of men as feeble nincompoops is quite hilarious and will sell their product. I don't know if it works or not, though it must since it appears with such frequency. I'm not planning on boycotting any products because of their lame attempts at humorous ads. It's just discouraging to see men repeatedly treated so poorly in advertising and I have to wonder to what degree the next generation will take their cue from the ads they watch over and over as children. Granted, I'm not running through supermarkets "squeezing the Charmin", but Mr. Whipple wasn't shown as a father or a role model. Many of the commercials in question show the men as fathers and as we all know, children are impressionable. Obviously children shouldn't get their role models from TV commercials, and hopefully they won't, but we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, watch out for exploding grills.--