How the Media Makes Men Look Stupid

[redqueen]

2. From a site called "god discussion": "do women have too much power now?"

Really?



And your Daily Kos link? You really should have read it.

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In all these ads but one, these guys are stupid about ladygirl stuff. Those dumb guys... they just can't feed themselves or their families properly, they fidget like kids at domestic events, and they're clueless and tactless about mysterious women stuff like, say, dieting. At worst women are mildly contemptuous of guys doing that crazy guy stuff, but they're more often fondly tolerant. Though not exhibited in these particular ads, you can also flip channels in your mental TV, and recall ads that show men being stupid about forgetting anniversaries, buying women presents, selecting and using cleaning products, not being able to recognize their own wives when the wife puts on a special make-up or perfume, and so on. Oddly, you almost never see ads focusing on men who are stupid in their professions, stupid at making political decisions, stupid about making decisions on very expensive purchases, stupid about serious subjects, or incompetent at running anything outside the domestic sphere... unless there's another, smarter man in the same commercial.

The only ad that breaks the above pattern is from T-Mobile and features a teenaged girl. She seems to be questioning her mother's definition of "good men," and when she turns to her phone in the end, she's apparently making her own decision. In that sense, the ad can be read as challenging stereotypes. But she's framed very traditionally -- as a (quietly) rebellious teenager who possibly doesn't know what's best for herself. After all, her guy "used to eat pencils," while dad is clearly hard-working enough to afford big toys like riding mowers, and that nice house they're sitting in. Mom stands by her man when his goodness is challenged. The commercial is pitched at the demographic represented by the teenaged girl, and so her subjectivity is showcased (a step up from a lot of other ads), but at the same time she's gently rebuked by a mom who can tell the difference between a "bad" guy, and Good Guys horsing around. Futhermore, her "independence" is established by picking her own guy. And let's think for a moment about the fact that Mom defends Dad and Uncle Joe. In ads where women are objectified or where their intelligence is insulted, do you often see one man contradict another man and tell him that women aren't just sex symbols, or that they're just as smart as men? No... pretty much the only time you see men standing up for women in ads is in stereotypically "gallant" ways, or comparisons in which "my girl is better than your girl."

If you haven't sussed out the overall pattern yet, advertising employs the "Trope of the Stupid Man" in ways that affirm, rather than challenge sexist notions of women's work and women's place. The son who put this commercial collection together for his father thinks that it's men being dissed in these commercials, and he's angry about it. But how stupid is it really to be (or to pretend to be) awful at the sort of work that guys aren't "supposed" to do anyway? And to have the ability to get someone else to do it for you?

How many of you have kids (or roommates) or a spouse who does an assigned chore so badly that it makes you think you might as well just do it for yourself? In my circles, we call that "successful manipulation." Ads are by nature manipulative -- that's their job. So let's take a deeper look at what's going on.

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It's definitely worth reading.