http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc1U8vAkwgE
Sexual politics plays very little role in my life, and when it does, I usually side with the feminists on most issues, particularly reproductive choice, workplace equality and domestic violence. But this TV ad takes the prize when it comes down to downright man-loathing misandry.
Note the contempt with which the dufus househusband in this dishwashing detergent commercial is treated by his arrogant and snarky (and casually castrating) wife. From the opening comment What are you doing?, delivered in the same tone you would expect from a Catholic school nun catching a ten year old masturbating, to the closing dismissive Stop it!. The man shows himself to be a disgusting and filthy moron, but the wife, with her patronizing, sneering interrogation, complete with strategic eye-rolls and thinly-veiled sarcasm, makes no effort to disguise her total contempt from him or the camera. I suppose he’s too dumb to notice, and the virtual audience is fully expected to agree with her. It makes you wonder, if she’s so damned smart, how could she have married this cretin in the first place?
It would be tempting to just blame the feminazis for this pathetic little vagina monologue and let it go at that, but I don’t think that’s what’s behind it at all. This entire little domestic mellerdramma has been carefully calculated to push all the right cultural buttons to sell soap. Advertising agencies are not necessarily owned and run by women, and I don’t think this is what these Mad Men think of other men, its what they believe women think about men, or should think: that they are too stupid and brutish to even understand the basics of kitchen hygiene, much less that they are being insulted by their own wives. This ad isn’t about women disrespecting men, its about marketers disrespecting their customers, both men and women, by demonstrating how far they are willing to go just to sell some fucking soap. Middle class suburban men are already routinely bullied, emasculated and humiliated by their Mommies, their wives, their kids, their creditors, coaches, drill sergeants and their bosses. Guess where it comes from? Its not just the commercials, its from the programming, too. Where is Philip Wylie when we really need him?
Commenter Clayton Lee gets it only half-right. But he seems to be the only one that picked up on
even part of what I saw.
Why do advertisers persist in portraying husbands and fathers as helpless morons? You’ve offended half your audience, or at the very least portrayed a scenario that is so outside the realm of reality that it’s not relatable. Dial it down you man-hating ad execs.