Cultural Misandry? – A Minor Rant on The “Men are Stupid” Commericals.

“Men may have invented almost everything but women invented the world’s oldest profession.”

Gotta give us brothers credit for inventing pimping, too!

Do you think Neanderthal pimps had big floppy hats?

The commercials are just following the lead of the sitcom writers who have been pulling this crap since “Married, with Childern.” The article fails to mention the idiot men are always white, too.

Actually Married w/ Children everyone was fairly lame.

Excellent rant and 100% on target.

Commercials pay our bills. My husband is a copywriter. However, we don’t watch TV at our house. At least not shows with commercials. He does NOT make any commercials with a man as a dunce. He hates those, too.

My husband is the man of the house. He works hard to provide the basics for our family. I take care of the house as frugally and efficiently as I cab so he doesn’t have to work harder for frivolous items. I’d rather have him home with us. It is a wonderful combination and our children are thriving. I wish more women wanted to be stay at home moms.

You try raising kids, beating laundry on rocks, cooking 3 meals a day, working in the fields, sewing, cleaning and trying to keep a husband happy, AND invent things.

I’m implying that historically, up until the last century, women haven’t exactly been embraced and told, “Go on, get a good education and do something with it.” Or, “I’ll take care of the kids and the house. You go work on your inventions.” So the list for women is pretty slim on purpose.

And cooked food. Which made the whole "civilization" thing possible. Guys didn't do so well on the hunt? No worries, you can still go back to the camp and have a nice meal of cooked veggies.

Because the veggies are cooked and softened you can eat them quickly and gain a lot more nutrition then if you ate them raw. So you will have more hours tomorrow to go hunting and more energy to do it.

So I guess you could say we invented time management too.

“BUT! Take notice, it’s only the “white” men who are idiots.”

If a white man and a black man are doing something in a commercial, yes it will usually be the white man who is the buffoon. But I’ve seen commercials where black men look stupid too, in relation to black women.

Freegards

1,000,000 BC: Fur bikini : Raquel Welch
Before that BC: Fire: Ogg (I am a direct descendant)

From elsewhere, a year ago:

Essay: Men are unfairly portrayed in this culture. Examples: The Simpsons--Homer is lovable and funny, but a dope. Bart is funny, but rather more than less of a shallow prick. Barney--drunk. Apu--money grubbing. Chief Wiggin, a moron. Mayor Quimby, a lecherous con artist, Rev. Lovejoy, a religious bigot, Crusty, an evil clown, Mr. Burns, an evil rich businessman, the principal of the school, a pompous ignoramous, Groundskeeper Willie, a rage-filled Scotsman, Otto the bus driver, a drug-addled doofus. Only Marge and Lisa are portrayed as more or less sane people (Patty and Selma, also, though living in despair). Malcolm in the Middle: Hal and the boys have to be reined in by Lois who knows all and manages all. Family Guy: Peter Griffin is impulsive, more or less insensitive, self-indulgent. His wife, by contrast, is mostly everything he's not. Radio commercials feature guys who are really dopey who have to be informed by or straightened out or otherwise moderated by the wise, all knowing woman. Men are portrayed as being violent towards women in domestic arrangements when in reality women initiate violence toward men in the same ways and to the same degrees as men.

But does this mean that all negative portrayals of specific men are without foundation? Take Tiger Woods as an example. He has for years gotten the most wonderful press possible. He's been praised as one the best golfers ever. He's been seized by certain people as being a representative of their race, though he himself doesn't portray himself as anything but multiracial. He's been described as a wonder who rose to greatness from a small child under the tutelage of a loving father. He has carefully maintained and promoted his image and gotten endorsement contracts worth many hundreds of millions of dollars. So was the negative attention to his many, many, many adulterous affairs an example of unfair portrayal of a man? Nope. He was a sleazeball. He admitted to it all. He used his position to portray himself one way to enrich himself while living entirely a different way. In this way he was defrauding his sponsors and lying to his fans. Perhaps people expected this kind of behavior out of movie stars, but assumed things were a bit different with a sports figure since he was doing something that was a lot more objective in its accomplishments than acting (though after Magic Johnson and Wilt Chamberlain I don't know how people could make that assumption about golfers unless they thought that sports libido was directly proportional to the size of the ball). On the one hand, it's probably true that he's one of the best golfers ever. But this doesn't mean he's a good guy. On the other hand, that fact that he's a moral slimeball who had probably mortally wounded his family doesn't mean that he can't be a great golfer. What everything means, though, is that his career is going to be eroded because of his truly horrible non-golf choices.

What does all this mean? It means that even though popular media unfairly portrays the male gender, it doesn't follow that all negative portrayals of individual men are inaccurate. It also doesn't follow that women are more to be believed because they are women. Look at what the uncritical willingness to accept the lies of a woman did to the members of the Duke lacrosse team. Were they behaving in bad ways? Yes. In criminal ways? No. But the societal predisposition to believe the woman combined with the prosecutor Nifong's urgency to use this case as a springboard for an upcoming election led to him conspiring to hide exculpatory evidence from the defense attorneys. He himself was later charged for his crimes. Members of the Duke academic community, before any guilt had been demonstrated at all, had already moved to expel the accused students from Duke. This underscores the necessity of looking past societal myths about gender in order to find the truth in demonstrable fact even if it upsets those who seek to benefit themselves from the myths.

Perhaps they are targeted to women? Even worse, to children?

That's right, to a certain degree. Most television commercials are aimed at the people in the audience who are most easily manipulated by silly nonsense -- young children and "soccer moms" being two good examples.

Thank you! That was an excellent post

What about that ad for Echo chainsaws where the guy is getting a prostate exam by four people?

Beyond the intended joke of the ad, I noticed that the patient is white, and the group lining up examine him includes a black guy, a woman, an asian man and a fourth guy (maybe a Bawney Fwank supporter?).

I may be reading more into it than I should, but it sure seems like there’s a message there.

I think part of the reason is that they want a "buffoon" character and white males won't be upset.

If they make a women a buffoon, the feminists will boycott. God help them if they make fun of a minority (and minority actors will refuse to take the part anyway). This is also why the criminal in security commercials is always a white male.

I like the ones where the man is caught doing something bad because he is so stupid, like order pizza when he sholdn’t, and is given a playful slap across the back of the head or a gentle little shove by the woman when she finds out. He won’t learn otherwise, right?

Someone should do a spoof of that with the gender roles reversed just to hear the howls when wifey did something stupid like get McDonalds and gobble all the fries, or get the wrong insurance, and is slapped across the back of the head by the man.

Freegards

Agriculture? Yeah, probably. It isn't a long stop from gathering to, "gathering would be so much easier if these plants were closer together".

I've long thought that agriculture was invented by a pregnant women who got tired of walking from camp to her favorite clump of berry bushes, and decided to transplant a few to a spot near the camp.

An Explosion of lesbians?

I've been in houses that looked like somebody's grandma exploded on the walls and windows.

So, I'm guessing this would involve a lot of plaid flannel and denim.

I'd get a kick out of having the "GASP" soundtrack from the original The Price Is Right!

It sounded sort of like a Hoot Owl, "whooo-ooh who who" but minus the "who who."

I think the 60's counter culture started this trend. Men were portrayed as role models as husbands and fathers and bread winners prior to the middle 60's. Remember the TV shows "Father Knows Best", "Leave It To Beaver", "Perry Mason", "Roy Rogers","Sea Hunt", "Sky King" and many more. All with positive male role models.
With the movement toward equality for women and minorities the PC crowd decided to knock men down a notch and raise up the image of women and minorities. This has been going on since the middle 60's.