Apparently, notwithstanding having fathered a child, possessing a Y chromosome, and producing more testosterone than estrogen, I am not a man.
As a man, I should be forgetting my wife’s birthday.
As a man, I should be a slob.
As a man, I should be stubborn, insensitive and socially oblivious.
As a man, I should be overweight.
As a man, I should have my wife rolling her eyes at my every move.
None of those things describe me, and yet they’re true for every bumbling father on sitcoms (Everybody Loves Raymond, anyone?), every Neanderthal husband in Hallmark cards (example), and every poor sap who was unlucky enough to be cast as “Husband” in a commercial geared toward women (in 2006, this actually happened: Brawny Academy). Oh, and how about every romantic comedy?
Even the much-heralded new Old Spice “The man your man could smell like” campaign (which I admit is entertaining) does more to belittle men than praise: “Your deadbeat man would be more tolerable if he at least smelled like Old Spice.”
Why are so many male characters in media such louses? In my experience, it’s not an accurate reflection of reality, at least not in the proportions shown.
My theory is as follows: we’re all insecure. Advertisers play into this insecurity in many ways. They promise men “manliness” and they promise women “sex appeal.” But they use a special extra technique when talking to women: they put down their man to make them feel better about themselves. They are the “other man” in your life, saying “This guy’s a louse. You don’t deserve it. But at least I understand you. Now buy me.”
My fear is that over time this Neanderthal caricature becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Men see themselves as dolts enough times on the big screen and they figure that’s how they’re supposed to act.
To combat this trend, I suggest subscribing to this.
Filed under: Consumers, Personal Tagged: | commercials, man, manliness, movie, Old Spice, tv
because in reality they really are self centered jerky characters.
http://www.fisherfentwoodblog.com
Mary,
I respectfully disagree. In fact, that was the point of the whole post. There is a very real slice of the male demographic who aren’t “self centered jerky characters,” (I count myself as one of them, though that probably sounds hypocritical) yet we are all considered the same by the media. It’s like saying that all women want to be at home with kids. It’s not true. Many women want to be in the workplace leading productive, fulfilling lives; and many want to be at home for whatever their plethora of personal reasons are. You certainly can’t generalize, yet that’s what advertisers tend to do (and shame on you for doing it too).
Garo,
Thank you for leaving a statement on my blog I welcome all comments.
Thank you for the kind remarks, not to generalize: However; Men seem to be the people writing most of these sitcoms, poking fun at men in general, not in particular. So when the men write these sitcoms they are doing it at their own expense, for the dollars they receive as writers. Nice to hear your comments.
If that’s true, and it’s a good observation, that depresses me even more.