If you have a penis and two testicles, you are a man.
Whether you are in possession of such fancy accoutrements or not, you will almost certainly have noticed the worrying trend of advertisers opening mocking men and their daft little ways to hawk their toot. It’s almost as if some of these advertisers want to rob us of?our penis and our two?testicles.
This blatant misandry (I looked it up?) has been going on for a while, quite subtly, and has left an impressive legacy of man-hating television adverts. The pathetic, bumbling and scared wreck of a man petrified of his own lisping four-old daughter in the Haribo ad serves as a particularly distressing example of this.
“Ha ha ha! Men like beer and football and often show tendencies to avoid housework!?A ha ha, look at them – all eating peanuts and talking about sparkplugs… The idiots!”
You could argue that advertising has been sexist towards women since its inception, with its attitude, objectification and patronising of the lovely lil? ladies. You could argue that, but who would you be arguing with? Your computer screen? Your cat? You could go on to argue that the current batch of vaguely iffy anti-men ads are just going some way to redressing the balance. I don't really care, this is just an introduction.
As it seems to be de rigueur to attack easy targets, let's look at the worst of this festival of hair-colour-based fun – the Just For Men ‘Job Interview’ ad.
Granted, this dubbed little ploppy of an advert isn’t the most offensive of the Just For Men output. Try not to think too much about the one where?two pushy little?squirts?successfully pimp their old, grey dad out in?a bid?to replace their absent Mother (who you can only?presume killed herself), lest you may cringe-shiver your spine out the top of your head.
Really, how difficult is it to make a terrible ad like this? All you need is a mirror, an insensitive daughter, some hair dye and a badly-dressed idiot. Do we really have to import American ads and then dub them unconvincingly?
Are Just For Men aiming for a very specific demographic here? Again, the man here is taking advice from a daughter who is assuming the matriarch role in the absence of a wife. Unemployed, grey-haired widows, cuckolded by their kids can’t be a huge market can it?
All that aside, it’s nice to know that if you ever find yourself as a greying out-of-work tie salesman, Just For Men have the answer. But only for men. Stupid, stupid men. With a penis and two testicles.
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Antony Antoniou says
mocking men in adverts has been around now for at least ten years now, the worrying thing is that the next generation of men may not even bat an eye lid at these absurd ads, as this is sadly becoming the norm and an ever growing trend……
good article
@silverton says
Clearly, you didn’t get the memo: All Old People Suck.
However, adverts like this one do go on to exploit two malignant stereotypes all at once; the aforementioned targets of misandry and the increasingly pervasive, illegal, agism in the workplace.
Set up a news keyword search; this one’s on the rise and none too soon.