'Anti-Male' Marketing Prompts Complaints

CNSNews.com ^ | November 09, 2004 | Susan Jones

[MisterRepublican]

Angry parents and grandparents are letting Verizon Communications know they don't like a new Verizon DSL commercial that makes fun of fathers.

Glenn Sacks, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, urged his listeners to call Verizon, after learning about a TV ad that shows a father trying, but failing, to help his young daughter with her homework.

The daughter, annoyed by her father, looks to her mother for intervention. The mother tells the father to go wash the dog, orders him to leave the daughter alone, and then yells at him when he is slow to comply, Sacks said.

Sacks told listeners that he "doesn't think Verizon means any harm." But he said it appears that the company - like some others -- has developed a "moral blind spot towards disparaging males."

According to Sacks, "Research shows how indispensable fathers are to their children's well-being....it is tremendously damaging to convince kids that their father is an idiot or that fathers are worthless."

[DameAutour]

There seems to be very little civility in the world. Something has got to give.

[Hat-Trick]

I always try to point out to our girls how TV/Hollywood/Madison Avenue attempt to portray parents in general and dads in particular as idiots. It's tough business trying to be a father to teenage girls. I'm fortunate that my two take after their mother. It's an awesome responsibility trying to show them with your deeds the kind of man that you hope they'll marry. I hope they'll never tire and always be excited about going with me to the hockey games and the gun range.

[Doc Savage]

My favorite is the Cialis ad. They have the obviously well-endowed, very hot (if you're middle-aged she's hot!) beckoning her partner that she's "ready" (if you get my drift!)

She is literally begging this guy on screen to "bring her to heights (Cialis has already brought him to new physiologic heights!) of sexual frenzy!"

Unfortunately, in my "romantic" experience, I have never run into a woman who "begs" for it.

Likewise, just watch sitcom on TV. "Jim" for example. Jim is a lunkhead, moron. This moronic stereotype is ALWAYS married to a very together wife who looks great in a tight sweater. Jim's actual wife "should" be a 225 pound beast with haircurlers.

Talk about decptive advertising! Still waiting for some hot babe to beg me. Hasn't happened, nor will it. And Damn, I'm handsome.....!

[MineralMan]

"I'm young, and I don't know a lot about advertisements in the past. But I have a strong feeling that they weren't the same way. Were they? And if they weren't, did they not sell?

It just seems to me that if this stuff is working with people, then people have seriously changed. The notion that men can't survive or do anything on their own is preposterous to me, because of how I was raised. I get the feeling it would have been preposterous 50 years ago.
"

Well, I'm not young any more. 50 years ago was 1954, and I was watching television back then. The situation comedies of that period, like "Father Knows Best," "Life of Riley," and later shows like "Leave It to Beaver," all had dufus-like fathers who always got taken advantage of by the women in their lives. They were always portrayed as big dumb, if kindly, guys who always ended up giving in to the wife.

Well, advertising back then was the same as it is now...just not as well-done. It has been a staple of television advertising to cast the man into the role of buffoon and the woman as the clever one.

As it is now, it IS all marketing. Apparently the technique worked on my mom's generation, my generation, and now another generation. 50 years has created no changes in this.

Am I flip about it? Yes. But things were the same 50 years ago, so I guess it works pretty well.

[ConservativeStatement]

That may have been a modified version. Perhaps they have multiple ads.

[The Westerner]

Totally agree with this. But it's been going on for decades, since the beginning of the feminist movement. And the anti-hero in movies. And it's just a little bit better for mothers. Authority figures, in general, parents in particular are regularly seen as out of control and incompetent.

[najida]

Beg you for what ;)

[AmericanInTokyo]

quite frankly, I am a bit tired of all the American TV commercials that constantly portray males (of any age) as stupid a**holes, to bet put down, or put in their place, by better knowing, in-command females.

I'll watch an ad, reverse it in my mind (with the male insulting the female) and know that NO WAY could that be run on TV. It runs the gamut, all the way to kids commercials on Saturday TV, bringing up American girls in a sense of superiority, when simple equality is called for. American males are too benevolent and nice to put a stop to this crap. I have NEVER seen such anti male TV ads in Europe or Asia. What is wrong with America.

[It's me]

I HATE THAT COMERCIAL!!

It just makes me and my girls mad. I feel sorry for the poor dad and, what selfish stuck up girls. I want to SMACK them.

My girls say, "Who's paying for the cell phones!?"

[Doogle]

bout time someone took them to task




and this from a retired VZ employee

Doogle

[yarddog]

Your post #184 is weird.

While Chester Riley might fit your description of a doofus Father, Jim Anderson, (Father Knows Best) and Ward Cleaver, (Leave it to Beaver) were just the opposite.

The most popular sitcom of the era was "I Love Lucy" and there it was the wife who was portrayed as the lovable but nutty one.

I don't recall any ads which were like so many modern ones. BTW one of the weekly news programs, the one with Stossel on it, once did a story on how men were portrayed so negatively in ads.

[pgkdan]

I know...and the way they look at the guy is disgusting. First they give him blank stares and then a look of contempt. I know it's a commercial but it sends a bad message.

[Paridel]

It's been a while since I've seen that commercial, but at the time I thought it was hilarious. I can see why some people would get upset about the supposed feminizing of the kid, or their fighting in front of him... But I think that this commercial is different from the others because it acknowledges a difference in the sexes.. and that it is important for kids to have parents of both genders.

Maybe I've just spent too much time in New York, but I didn't find either character as despicable as the author of the blug entry.

Perhaps I need to qualify that New York statement a bit... there are a lot of couple I knew there (maybe the heavy Italian influence?) that would chide each other a lot, similarly to the couple in the commercial, but still had what I would consider a fairly healthy relationship.

-paridel

[Paridel]

I think that one was talked about in the bell curve.

Would be able to be discerned by a simple comparison of standard deviation.

Hmm, both of your comments initially confused the heck out of my so I though a would try to help clarify the issue for other readers of this thread.

First, fooman, By in the bell curve do you mean the book "Bell Curve" by Richard Herrnstein? As first I just thought you mean bell curve as in normal or Gaussian distribution....

I always thought of standard deviation as really more of an indicator of how wide the "bell" is in a normal (gaussian) distribution. Of another way of putting it, how closely clustered are the results around the mean. I'm not really sure how that would indicate that a different model of distribution would be a better fit... but then again much of probability and stochastic processes eludes me....

But, you are absolutely right... the standard deviation would indicate if there were more outliers in male intelligence. That's related but a little different to the implications of a laplacian being a better fit for male intelligence data....

And now I'm getting way to far out of my knowledge base for comfort, so before I type something (else) dumb I'll sign off. ;-)

-pardel

[fooman]

yes the book.

There are fat tail distributions which can have fat tails as the guy alluded above.

Sigma is how wide the curve is, but does not shape gaussian curve with fat tails.

[yarddog]

While in grad school I read a good article on differences in intelligence between the sexes.

There was quite a bit of difference in some areas.

Overall, the sexes are just about identical with girls scoring very slightly higher. The big difference was the extremely high scores were heavily skewed towards males.

[Bon mots]

No Marriage

The solution.
A cool website too. A little bit bitter, but funny.

[nomad]

When I see those commercials, I make it a point to avoid those products.

[fooman]

http://www.costofsex.com/


Another example of how this hardens men's hearts.

[JakeWyld]

I guess whatever works for people is okay by me. I just don't see how relationships survive that kind of combatitiveness over money that eventually has to arise when the credit card bills come in.