Friday, June 13, 2008
10 Most Male Insulting Commericals - Thank you to Askmen.com
One of the greatest challenges facing our culture today is the destruction of the positive male role model. Dennis Prager on his weekly radio program this week mentioned that when he was growing up he had male figures aside from his dad all day long. His teachers included many men, his principal, his rabbi, etc.
But today, many children, even if their father lives with them, will go all day long without interacting with another male in an authority position. Yes yes, of course many single mothers do a great job raising kids, but the loss of male presence in our lives is destructive for all of us. To be the best human beings we can be we need relationships, ones of both peer and authority, of both genders. But today, men are largely absent from too many kids lives.
But to make things worse, the media images of men are horrible. Remember Friends? Ross was a schmuck, Chandler was weak, and Joey a stupid nymphomaniac. Wow, great options there. The most recent Sex in the City movies? Well, see as Kathryn Jean Lopez, on-line Editor of National Review, pointed out in her column:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzliYjUwM2Y4M2ZkYzIyZDZmZjk1YjJhOTg0MjM2ZDA=
the men of Sex in the City are not to be respected, forgiven, on in the end, needed.
Father especially are treated as either dumb, useless, or bafoons. Gone are the days of Ward Cleaver, Andy Griffith, and Mr. Cunningham. Today, outside of Mr. James Timothy Possible, Rocket Scientist and father of Kim Possible, I cannot think of another solid and involved dad in modern media for kids.
And now commercials are doing it as well. This makes no sense to me because it hardly seems likely that men, who still account for a great deal of spending, are going to use products who view them as baffoons. Think of the Domino’s Commerica “You’ve Got 30” minutes where a couple decides to have sex and the wife/partner says, “what about the other 28 minutes?” Ha Ha. Or the Sonic Drive-in commericals where men consistently act as if they have permanent brain freeze.
What is going on here?
Well, Askmen.com has what they see as the 10 most insulting ads out right now, with links to YouTube.com videos. Here is where the articles start:
http://www.askmen.com/toys/top_10_300/327_top_10_list.html
The worst of the bunch is this disaster from Dairy Queen:
Lets think how many levels of wrong this is:
1) Using sex to sell ice-cream.
2) Using child sexual images to sell ice cream. I mean come on, we are supposed to think about her using her sexuality to get what she wants. You know what, seven year olds (the age of the boy) does not think about girls at this age.
3) The commerical encourages girls to use boys to get what they want through sex, starting at the earliest of ages.
4) It disrespects boys and therefore men
5) The mother allows this!
6) It makes the point that the entire race known as boys are dumb and driven by hormones ontologically. Yea, that is a good message.
Let me be clear Dairy Queen. I will never eat at your establishment again. I loved their ice cream and went there relatively frequently. But no more. You thought making fun of men and using childhood sexualit ywas a good idea, for our culture and your bottom line. It certainly isn’t for the first, and at least for the $4 I spend every week, I don’t think it will be for the second either.
