1115.org

Posted by Sam

Ad agencies would have us believe that all of us men are 30-ish, fat, bald, lazy, forgetful and selfish. That it takes an exhaustive effort and cacophonous cajoling from shrewish wives to get us off our asses. That the only things that interest us are boobs, beer and ballgames. (And maybe hotwings.) Otherwise, we are dead to the world.

Once in a blue moon (most likely around holiday-season) we��all versions of the same prototypical modern-day Neanderthal��rise to the occasion and spend some inordinate amount of dough on a diamond for the woman in our lives. Somehow, that makes up for all the yardwork we’ve neglected.

Commercial Man is a man who cannot wash a dish without explicit instruction; nor can he be trusted to run a household in a woman’s absence for more than thirty seconds. One commercial I’ve seen shows a woman, incapacitated by the flu who is forced to leave things to her bumbling husband. He’s dressed in a suit but flailing about in an abortive effort to sustain order. He sends the kids out in the snow wearing Bermuda shorts, he feeds them candy for breakfast, he is lost in a mountain of dirty clothes in the laundry room. The final scene has him near tears while clutching a bottle of detergent as though it were a jackhammer, and he a heart surgeon.

Worse still are the women who, in the end, actually control these men. While the men are dumb as mud and as easily manipulated as chocolate pudding, the women are all hard-faced and impatient. Often they are duplicitous, for it’s the only method they have of getting their way. Sometimes they sport smug little smiles that say, “God, you’re stupid, but societal convention says I’ve gotta put up with you. After all, you do bring home the bacon.”

In another commerical, it’s the man’s turn to be sick. He lolls on the couch while the snow piles up outside. His scheming wife offers him medicine that will help him regain his energy so he can “go out into the snow.” While he imagines daredevil stunts in a makeshift toboggan, she hovers over him��that ever-present, insidious sneer playing at her lips��with a shovel.

What, do we exist in some lowbrow, ironic version of the 1950’s? Am I mistaken that we’ve made progress in the arena of gender roles?

In reality, women and men share household responsibilities. A man should be willing and able to blow a nose or cook a meal. That doesn’t make him a sissy. So too, it ain’t butch for a woman to take up hammer and nail.

It’s as if they’re pitching their products to Oliver and Barbara Rose. To them, a happy marriage is defined by bubbling but subdued female fury and male-pattern self-absorption. Do these ad execs really think they can’t sell stuff to a household in harmony?