I wondered about this as I watched the new show last night Person of Interest. The show is about a different person each week who is either the victim or perpetrator of a violent crime and of course, the “good guys” who put a stop to it before it happens.
In the season premiere, the “person of interest” is a woman, Diane Hanson, an assistant DA for the city. Naturally, it is thought that she is going to be the victim of the crime, perhaps targeted by a gang she is prosecuting or her ex-boyfriend who works in the same office. It turns out, Hanson, the pretty DA, is actually the ring leader of a group of bad cops who she tells to kill her ex who seems to be on to them. So score one for the ex who is actually the good guy here.
I have also noticed in a few commercials lately that it is the wives, not the husbands who are put in a worse light. In one phone commercial, a man tells his wife that he got a contract for a cell phone and she mutters about how wasteful he is with money and how he doesn’t consult her when spending money. It turns out, he got the phone for free and and she looks shocked and shuts up.
In another State Farm commercial, a guy is talking to his agent in the middle of the night innocently while his wife comes downstairs, yelling at him for talking to what she thinks is a woman he is involved with. The male agent is shown at the end of the commercial in his cubicle while the husband just looks slightly exasperated with his jealous wife. These commercials aren’t the best but I wonder if it shows that the tide is turning with the “men are idiots and cheaters” theme.
What do you think? Do you see examples where men are portrayed on television in a more positive light or have I just cherry-picked a few examples that are not part of a trend?
Better Off Ted. Two season show a couple years back. Main character was a single father manager in an evil mega corp.
However, he’s a doting father, good boss, thoughtful brother, and works ethically in a very questionable company. All around a very competent and likable person.
Meanwhile his ex-wife (who never appears on screen) has run off to “save the world” abandoning her daughter.
Well, I surely don’t see any trend. Men are still protrayed as idiots and weak.
2 recent commercials come to mind:
Father wants to make dinner more exciting. So he uses a mini-helicopter to dispense tomato sauce on his daughter’s plate. Chaos ensues, the daughter is splattered with sauce, and the mini-helicopter crashes into the dish cabinet, making a dreadful mess. This is a spot for some sort of food product; makes the father look like an idiot.
Second commercial is for car insurance. Visibly upset man calls his previous insurance agent, who happens to be female. The man is standing next to his car which has just been in a minor accident. Man is crying about his situation; he shouldn’t have left his previous agent, chasing a new agent. Man begs his previous agent to take him back.
Do you think any ad agency would reverse the roles, and have a crying woman call her previous male insurance agent, while the woman is still at the accident scene?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Would it be inconvenient to your point if I said spraying tomato sauce from a toy helicopter sounds really cool and totally worth the subsequent clean-up?
Oh, I agree 100% – it sounds like a cool, funny idea.
And I think the guy is in the right … as long as he takes responsibility for the cleanup
.
D
WRT the insurance add, may I suggest that the attempted humor in this is the juxtiposition of the the man in what is a stereotypical feminine role (overly emotional and crying over a minor accident and begging an ex to come back). I am as tired as the next dude with the “smart woman – dumb man” meme, but this seems to me more of a role-reversal joke than a “stick it to the MAN” thing.
I’ve been watching TV for half a century now and I sure hope the trend of making the women almost exclusively smart and good and the men almost exclusively childish and feeble is winding down. It’s been bothering me for many many years.
I can see why it happened in the first place. When women started to work full time in greater numbers, and as families fractured with easier divorce and feminism developed a following, a substantial market of intelligent working women developed that wielded more financial power. Naturally, the marketing types that develop ads and the producers of TV programs noticed and decided that the previous portrayals of women just weren’t cutting it any more. Instead of portraying women as housewives obsessed only with the cleanliness of their laundry or floor, they started to show women as well-rounded people. That was a good thing.
Unfortunately, most storytelling, whether it is in the form of a movie, TV program, or even the very brief story that appears in a commercial, seems to need good guys and bad guys or at least someone to poke fun at. Since the women were now being elevated in their portrayals, it seems the men had to be downgraded a notch – or three. And that’s where I started getting very annoyed. It seemed like the old model was largely inverted: the women became the smart and powerful ones and the men became wimps at best and imbeciles at worst.
It still seems to me that the pendulum is still overwhelmingly on the women’s side in this whole scenario but I, for one, would be delighted to see it swing back to somewhere close to the middle. I certainly don’t want to return to the days where women were only homemakers – on TV or in real life – but I’d love to see the world that I thought was coming when feminism first appeared on the scene. That’s a world where men and women are treated and respected equally and have the same opportunities to do whatever they want to do with neither one having to be treated as second class citizens.
If we’re very lucky, maybe the marketing types and producers are ready to start portraying THAT world instead of the “women are amazing, men are third rate” model that seems to dominate today.
It seemed like the old model was largely inverted: the women became the smart and powerful ones and the men became wimps at best…
I grew up on that Old Tyme TV. The “old model” was Wife Smarter Than Mother-In-Law. Over the years the always eager to pander advertising community morphed that into Wife Smarter Than Husband. A huge difference? Really?
The examples you’ve cited are heartening, but there’s at least one more trend to watch: the dominance of the “dark hero,” who’s either on the wrong side of the law or is willing to bend the law severely to gain his ends. These are almost always men — and they’re among the manliest men in televised entertainment.
Consider:
– Michael Westen of “Burn Notice”;
– Raylin Givens of “Justified”;
– The bikers in “Sons of Anarchy”;
– The undercover cops in “Dark Blue” (not renewed for this season).
This could have cultural effects of importance.
Yeah, but what if, considering how genuinely lawless our own government is, “bending the law” is a good thing?
You have a point, but even there, there’s a buried danger: the overall loss of respect for the law — not the law as it stands today, but the concept of law, particularly as a standard that stands above personal status and privilege.
Americans do venerate the honorable rebel, he who defies the established ways for the sake of a higher duty, and well we should. However, it would be well for us to reflect on what distinguishes the honorable rebel from the other sort. Surely gun and drug-running, “rough justice,” and systematic deceit in the name of law enforcement ought to get a few moments’ sober thought.
Perhaps I’m missing the point but the “dark hero” is not “bending the law.” He is upholding the law in spite of the obstacles, be they official or criminal. Let’s step in the way back machine, and return to those “thrilling days of yesteryear.” Yes, it’s The Lone Ranger – the Icon (with a capital I) of Western-oriented TV programming and the “dark” or in this case masked “hero” riding off into the sunset after righting of wrongs. In sum, we’ve very much seen this before. The Jim Caviezel character in Person of Interest is, essentially, the 21st century version of The Lone Ranger. Sorry, a lot of overintellectual angst is going into this comment thread!
You just summed up the difference between Burn Notice and Sons of Anarchy.
Sorry to blow my own horn, but I touched on this. CBS used to be the home of the procedural, older guy, sometimes but not always (Lawrence Fishburne, Dennis Haysbert) White, leads a team of disparate law enforcement including at least one HOT CHICK! to restore order and find and punish the guilt. Including the Unit, the procedural encompassed CSI, CSI Miami, CSI NY, NCIS, NCIS LA, Blue Bloods, NUMB3RS, Cold Case, Without a Trace, the Mentalist, and probably a whole bunch of others.
Now, Person of Interest is not the Equalizer. It is not Burn Notice. It is something far more interesting, shocking that JJ Abrams and Jonah Nolan are involved in it and developed the screenplay it is based upon.
Person of Interest is based on a software program written for the government by Finch. Finch says after 9/11 (the seminal event for both Finch and Reese, the two heroes), the PUBLIC WANTED NO MORE 9/11S BUT DID NOT WANT TO KNOW HOW IT WAS DONE. [Emphasis mine.] So the Government gave itself the power to read every email and listen to every phone call, and for the volume needed the software program. But the program found other stuff, evidence of crimes being plotted, not mass murder but ordinary murder. The government did not care, so Finch had the only data he could send without getting caught, the social security numbers sent. So as he puts it, “you could be there in time,” to stop a murder or murders.
This is NOT about the rule of law. It is about FAILURE. Failure of the people to monitor, take an interest in, and decide openly among themselves, what means will they take and what will they sacrifice to be safe, or will they have more 9/11s to be totally free? It is about the FAILURE of the government to take an interest in anything beyond counter-terrorism. [Finch wrote the program, Reese was the sharp end of the counter-terrorism effort by the government.]
Finch and Reese step in, because both the government and people FAILED. Just as they had failed in Nolan’s Gotham City of the Batman movies, where judges and police are totally corrupt, the citizens clueless and scared, and monsters roam around unchecked. Batman, and Finch/Reese only exist because of that failure.
Basically, one of the most liberal guys in Hollywood (JJ Abrams is hosting a fundraiser for Pelosi) is saying that the people and government both failed. How’s that for Hopey-changey, we are the ones we have been waiting for? Its as if Joss Whedon suddenly got enamored of the Punisher (another character who exists because superheroes, the city, and the law all failed spectacularly) and produced a series around him.
The whole point of this show is the total failure, and a willing failure by both the people and the government who walked away, leave it totally to the heroes to decide what to do (and they break almost every law imaginable) and how to do it. Written by one of the most Liberal men in Hollywood!
Actually, that is an ancient trend; “Batman” is probably the best-known example of the breed. It may have STARTED in the ’30s in comic books, but, aside from comics themselves being big business these days, and having considerable effect on the attitudes of young people, movies based on them are becoming a major part of Hollywood’s output.
I’m not so sure vigilante justice is a new development as much as it is a traditional storyline (along with corrupt cops & officials, etc). What do you do when the system is failing you?
What’s actually most striking about Burn Notice is that the female lead is one who likes to shoot people and blow stuff up, for a change. The show is decidedly losing its punch since they began giving Weston a harder edge and reverted to the tired trope of a woman seeking commitment from a skittish guy.
Castle has been more faithful to a somewhat similar premise. He’s the family guy, and she’s the tough cop — in stilettos. It almost conjures up the old (feminist?) observation that Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did, except she had to do it backwards — in heels.
The Closer features a strong female lead (also in heels!), with a more complex romantic relationship than the usual fare. It also features a complex professional relationship between two women which has nothing to do with competing for men. Contra your law & order concerns, in this case the fact that Brenda strayed over the line has become a central storyline.
All three of these immensely popular shows owe a great deal of their success to female characters working against “type” — which relies on an existing macho male stereotype to begin with, of course, but doesn’t turn men into silly wimps either.
If there’s a trend here, I’d say it’s that the new chick flick has come a long way, baby. Perhaps the fact that the central women are also sexy is designed to appeal to men, but when they’re not relegated to cynically working those feminine wiles on (hapless?) guys, it’s a welcome change, IMO.
Need I say that the extended italics were unintended? Profuse apologies, if I’ve messed up the formatting for subsequent posters with unforgiving browsers. It would be really terrific if PJ comment software sported a preview window!
It almost conjures up the old (feminist?) observation that Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did, except she had to do it backwards — in heels.
====
While she hung on to Fred for dear life. And just try to get Ginger to dance in “sensible” shoes.
Hoo boy, I never thought I’d say this, but lighten up. Just as advertisers pandered to woman by getting them out of girdle, hose & heels while waxing the kitchen floor, the show creators are trying to get more female viewers with the “dark hero”. Which is another way of saying women love watching (if not actually dating) the “bad boy”. (I’d note, tho, that they seldom marry them, unless truly hoping for a life of unceasing & prob. awful drama.) Perhaps it’s nothing more than all humans seem to want what they can’t have …
I was surprised as well when the female DA turned out to be the bad guy. Didn’t see the end as I switched over to watch Whitney as I’d always liked her comedy act. They have all the stereotypes but her live-in boyfriend is the stable center for her crazy act. One aside, that surprised me, one of the girlfriends in explaining why she can wear pants to a wedding uses the reason she pays alimony to a ex who does spoken word for a living.
Well, we watch Psych b/c the dad does know everything. And he acts like a dad, for the kid at the beginning clip, and as the kid is a grownup with a business. The other partner has a strong family, with a mom and a dad who aren’t afraid to push their kids to do what they think is right. And the dad is a manly dad- he gets exasperated, he yells, he orders the kid to do his chores. He sounds like a real dad with a lively kid.
Past that- nothing with incompetent dads and disrespectful moms. Just won’t watch it.
Spouse watches things with incompetent, hound-dog single men. He’s not going out, acting it out, so if he wants to watch vicariously, fine. I watch mysteries, and I’m not sawing up bodies and putting them down the garbage disposal, so…….
In the 60s I remember women routinely being shown as dumb in TV commercials. Gradually it switched completely and only men were shown as dumb. If it is switching back to women being portrayed negatively, is that really progress? Or maybe we will have equal opportunity put downs?
I for one would find it gratifying to have women portrayed negatively, all the time.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ! ! ! !
I hope the author is correct. However, I have not noticed a let-up. Most men (especially white men) are portrayed as dumb slobs desperately in need of a woman to roll her eyes and set the losers straight. Yes, the woman in the cellphone commercial comes across as mean, but the husband is a pudgy, pasty-faced, disheveled nerd.
I am involved in the advertising business. Much advertising product is hyper-politically correct, cliched, often sexist and racist. (Ever see a casting sheet? E.g., “Needed: Native American male with long hair willing to wear a loin cloth.”)
Advertising is frequently insulting to a wide swath of potential customers. Is it any surprise that the industry is in a depression in many parts of the county? Many businesses have cut advertising expenditures over the past few years. They know most advertising is a waste of money. Why spend huge dollars telling your target market “You’re a fool and a weakling, please get out your wallet and buy our product”?
Exactly. Why do ads willingly offend half their potential market?
Who am I supposed to identify with? The mealy mouthed henpecked husband or the preening, overbearing hag tending her immaculate greenhouse garden? I detest them both and am not likely to want the product they are selling.
Some may say the ad’s a success because we are discussing it, but I can’t recall the name of the product, so it’s a failure.
There’s plenty of bad or (at best) puzzling elements to that commercial. The wife is supposed to be concerned about the household expenses but those aren’t food plants she’s tending!
To me, the worst is when the wife mutteres that she should have married so-and-so in front of her husband! That’s nearly a capital crime against the marriage and presumably the advertiser considers it just a casual ha-ha funny remark.
Why do advertisers risk offending half their market? Because they don’t, or don’t think they do.
Today the WSJ had a bit in the Marketplace section on how women are responsible for 80% of all consumer spending.
So expect a LOT more male bashing. Because most women enjoy it. That will only change when MEN are responsible for at least half, not 20%, of consumer spending.
[Interestingly enough I had a post up today on how Hollywood is making a side bet on Person of Interest.]
I long assumed the advertising business had been taken over by feminists and gays. I’ve been wondering for almost twenty years now why it was so anti-male and what the hell did they think that would gain them in customers?
Recalling that 1986 Tom Hanks movie “Nothing in Common”, and “Mad Men”, I got the distinct impression that most big clients rid herd on their advertisers and review everything before it goes out. In all these years didn’t any big clients say: “Are you people nuts? Get it right or I take my business elsewhere!”
So the clients either just laid down for advertising that insulted their customer base or slowly drifted away?
Cartoonist B. Kliban summed it up many years ago in “The Birth of Advertising”:
http://tinyurl.com/7qt3yom
These do not script ads or shows to drive the agenda, generally. They write things that will resonate with current moods. We are swinging back to the Right, becoming more Conservative again. We will see more of this, because it sells. The country is crying out for strong, manly men again.
One thing I like about “Two and a Half Men” is that the male characters, while definitely not heroic, do their own thing. I especially like that Charlie fights off the “remodeling” efforts of his women, and Alan learns to deal with his many insecurities (usually hilariously). Yes, there are overbearing women in the show, but they’re no angels.
I just discovered “Castle” — drawn to it because I enjoyed “Firefly”. Richard Castle is the breadwinner (as a writer) who is supporting his teen-aged daughter (his ex isn’t capable of staying around and being a mom) and his Broadway actress mother. He’s up front about having had a wild youth, but because of that he is protective of his daughter.
Castle clearly loves his daughter and his mother, but is no pushover.
He respects women, but expects to be respected, also. Yes, there are some light moments when the lady cop he does ride-alongs with one-ups him. But you also get the feeling that, sometimes, he lets her. IOW, the way life works
There is definitely a change going on. Not just in the portrayal of men. Blue Bloods has strong male characters, strong family features and a definite non-progressive sense of right and wrong. Interestingly, last season they had a scandal that a local female black pol was blaming on the police department. The story line had her budgeting looked into and ended with her arrested for misappropriating funds. This season they have a new black, former community organizer, mayor.
But last night the show ended with police commissioner smoking a cigar on a pier off a park. He is told by a patrolman, “no smoking” in city parks. In the end, the police commissioner (Tom Selleck) comments to his son, I’m glad we got rid of the nanny, speaking of the previous mayor. A seemingly direct challenge to Bloomberg.
Prime Suspect, set in NYC, had an aerial shot with the radio overlaid. The announcer said in regards to the murder that was the center of the plot, ” handgun permit applications have gone up 600%.” Completely implausible for NYC but interesting the writers would use that device to show the seriousness of their plot rather than the “city gripped in fear” plot device.
I also like “Blue Bloods.” I recall one episode where a much-beloved priest at the commissioner’s family’s church was being transferred to another country because of a dubious complaint from a female parishioner. The commissioner visited the archbishop and gave him some straight talk about doing what’s right, not what’s politically correct. The priest didn’t get transferred.
It was refreshing to see a TV show that for once did not bash religion, but portrayed its importance to a family.
While Selleck’s character is a bit too taciturn for my taste, I still enjoy the show. Len Cariou and Donnie Wahlberg are icing on the cake.
Have you seen the new season of Blue Bloods?
The old mayor is gone, and, according to a remark by Reagan (Selleck), he’s glad the “nannystate mayor” is gone. SO the previous mayor was a “Bloomberg.” The new mayor is an Obama clone — the script makes no bones about who he’s supposed to be, and Selleck’s character is very blunt with the new mayor about the new mayor’s background and how he climbed to power.
Have any of y’all noticed that when the ads are about crime and crime prevention (Alarm systems etcetera) the bad guy seen running away is always a white guy… not saying there are not bad white guys, there are but considering the statistics the likelyhood is that it could be equally white, black or hispanic as they have the highest rates of conviction…
Makes you think about political correctness…
“Have any of y’all noticed that when the ads are about crime and crime prevention (Alarm systems etcetera) the bad guy seen running away is always a white guy… not saying there are not bad white guys, there are but considering the statistics the likelyhood is that it could be equally white, black or hispanic as they have the highest rates of conviction…
Makes you think about political correctness…”
Not Political Correctness, more like reality. Normally, in those alarm system commercials, the neighborhood being shown is white, upper middle class. Statistics have long shown that most crimes committed by blacks, are black on black crimes. Truthfully, a black burglar skulking about a white upper middle class neighborhood would stick out like a sore thumb, and would probably be reported immediately – remember the incident with Prof. Gates in Cambridge, where Obozo became involved?
The cell phone commercial doesn’t represent any progress. Yes, the man is right and his wife is wrong. Nonetheless, he’s totally emasculated throughout the commercial. His wife neither apologizes nor acknowledges her error.
You’re absolutely right, of course. Are you and I the only citizens of DreamWorld? It’s obviously too much to ask for TV to portray two strong and sensible people, one of each “traditional sex,” working together to deal with a problem that is not part of their relationship. The world no longer works that way.
New hall of shame entry: State Street Financial shows a well-meaning enthusiastic father totally screwing up construction of a swing set as his kids roll their eyes. I’ll guess a few thousand kids don’t get swing sets, based on that. It’s OK–swings are dangerous!
I agree, was going to say the same thing, he was a schlub, just stood there while he got dressed down, meekly replied, and looked like he was used to that sort of treatment.
On TLC right now, there’s a 20/20 special on dads who unjustly had their kids taken away or kidnapped by evil, lying moms who took the kids to Italy. I’m amazed that TLC is covering such a pro-dad subject.
Bikerdad,
“Nonetheless, he’s totally emasculated throughout the commercial. His wife neither apologizes nor acknowledges her error.”
Agreed, but at least the man was portrayed as right. Many shows and commercials show dad as wrong, an idiot and emasculated. I know, baby steps, but at least it’s a tiny sign of heading in the right direction.
Dr. Helen,
BikerDad is 100% correct in his interpretation of the bitchy wife in the greenhouse being wrong (apparently just for once) –the husband IS totally nerdy and emasculated (not quite the same thing), and he’s craven even in the moment of his vindication. Apart from her being given pause (which does not lead to any *hint* of apology) he is allowed no true comic ‘so there!’ moment to enjoy puting her in his place. Instead he tells her of his sound decision as if he expects her to throw something at him.
That is one of a series of AT&T wireless commercials I’ve started watching carefully, and there is this painfully mandatory PC (as in lopsided) gender/race diversity thing going on, where the white man in the commercial is always the butt, and even the partial exception are a sort of corollary to that rule, shown by not just looking at the guy, but who is allowed to give him the ‘you dumbass’ look in the reaction shot:
Here they are, in the order I think they started airing:
1) Square white guy ruins the flash mob performance in train station by jumping the gun. White woman and black man do the ‘dumbass’ reaction.
2) Black guy in office puts his foot in his mouth over being left out of the free tacos. Breaks the white guy pattern, but only partly — note that even though its a mixed group, only other blacks are allowed to give the ‘dumbass’ reaction.
3) The already discussed greenhouse ad — even though the man is right, he is not allowed to really ‘win’. And its clearly implied that he *is* useless the other 99% of the time.
4)Mildest one but still fits the pattern: White younger guy snoozing in airport with headphones on gets put on facebook by his friends who are laughing at him — who just happen to a black girl and asian guy.
5)Dad changing baby’s diaper instead of being glued to the ball game on TV, gets a call from his buddy asking if he saw the play — while he’s talking he uses the phone to catch the highlight and act like he didn’t miss it.
But he gets busted by the wife shaking her head and he looks ‘caught’. In some ways this one annoys me the most because he is actually *doing* what he is supposed to in the modern household. Even though he’s being good dad that is also simultaneously used against him to show him as weak — he gets no respect for it.
I recommend Blue Bloods. Tom Selleck and Co. are excellent portray strong men in committed family relationships.
If you want to see anti-male bias, just check out teen Nick or the teen/tween shows on Disney. The young men and boys are all idiots and buffoons (and usually clumsy and nerdy to boot) while the girls are pretty, smart, athletic and solve the problems.
The next generation is not looking good
Here’s your answer:
1. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_security_sex.html
coupled with…
2. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/21/mean-women-milquetoast-men/
Feminism: Tunneling at rocket speed to the core of Planet Stupid.
One of my favorite programs is “Bones”. The FBI agent, “Booth”, constantly worries about being a good father to his son and is quite upfront about his belief in God and religion is usually treated positively.
So you did not watch the epissode where he said he hates Tea Parties and he thinks that being a colony of Britain was better than the independence?
I like “Bones” but I don’t think they do Booth any favors. I didn’t see an episode where Booth hates on the Tea Party, but that wouldn’t surprise me as it’s still Hollywood. What irks me about this show is that Booth is never able to explain his faith to Bones. He ends up treating his faith as a matter of superstition, like shushing Bones inside a church as if he were afraid he would be struck by lightning. It’s always been shameful, but again, it’s Hollywood and that’s pretty much what they think of faith: ridiculous superstition.
I think it was in the first season of Bones when they had a Christmas show when they were all trapped in isolation due to a pathogen scare… Bones went off on a whole “Christmas is a myth” rant and Booth stopped her short, saying “Some of us believe that myth” — Bones says something like, “Who, Booth, who besides you believes it.” Whereupon several of the staff raise their hands, including the director of the Jeffersonian (who was a man, in the early shows). Later, Bones sees all those who raised their hands with their families, loving, while she stands off alone… I remember it being very powerful, at the time.
George Lopez (I think it was Lopez) used to have a bit in his stand up act about how everyone in his family used to rush into the room whenever Ricky Ricardo went off in Spanish.. he said the room would erupt in cheers that Ricky was speaking Spanish again! It’s kind of like that for conservative Christians, nowadays, isn’t it.
You know you really don’t have to watch TV with it PC agenda. Don’t watch TV at all. I stopped years ago and don’t miss it. Reading, for one thing, is much more entertaining. So are a number of other activities.
I predict a time when all actors in commercials will be randomly selected for race and gender as a some kind of diversity-neutral mandate.
I have not seen Person of Interest but I have seen both of those ads and I believe you are mistaken. While the husbands are ultimately shown to be correct they are also completely whipped schmos. Try to imagine yourself saying “I want my son to grow up and be like that guy.”
I think these adds are worse than the typical idiot husband/father crap we usually see. Even though the “men” are right they are still pathetic.
Funny, I was just telling my husband the other night that I thought that commercial about the two college-aged girls trying to figure out what’s wrong with their out-of-control washing machine and they call one’s father via the computer…finally was a commercial that showed how awesome men are. Such a great Dad, with good humor, always there for his daughter, and promising to call a plumber but NOT a cute one. Love it!
I’ve seen the commercials you refer to and I thought they were very anti-male. They certainly show the women in the wrong but they also show the women very much in control. The men are portrayed as a bunch of hen-pecked little boys who have to placate their ‘mommy’.
It’s sad really. Anymore, I can’t bear to watch reruns of shows like Everybody Loves Raymond or the King of Queens–the husbands are portrayed as little boys and the wives as bossy shrews. Everybody Loves Raymond is the worst–nothing more pathetic than the man of the house getting humiliated and screamed at in front of their children.
Here’s another from the premieres last week, “Prime Suspect.” It was not so much a defense of masculinity, as it was that of traditional law enforcement, which tends to be a male-dominated, if not outright macho culture (which is a major theme of the show).
Maria Bello’s troubled police detective is dealing with her lover’s shrewish, antl-gun ex-wife, who makes all kinds of demands for conditions, over which she will allow their son to visit the home, even forcing Jane to remove her liscensed fire arms from the locked gun locker and removed from the house. (The wife might as well have had “Typical, guilty, stupid, naive, anti-gun, “all for the children” Liberal tatooed on her forehead).
While the ex-husband is at the restroom, during dinner with shrew and her spineless twit of a husband, Jane quietly points out the new beau’s old robbery conviction for stealing back an engagement ring from an ex, and the DUI that the shrew managed to cover up. When the guy returned from the restroom the ex had become signifigantly less judgemental about law enforcement, guns in the house and agreed to let the boy visit.
Great scene!
AT&T uverse tv commercial with mom,dad,daughter and son. Parents indecisive about which child should be rewarded with last recording space on dvr. Parents reward daughter because she is so beautiful. The son is reduced to a curly mopped meat puppet by the parents. Disgusting AT&T.
…and the parents consider giving it to the son just because “it’s all he’s got”. he’s still a little boy but his own parents assume that he will never have a future of any worth so why not toss him a crumb?
I saw that one. I was absolutely stunned. I haven’t the slightest idea what the point was supposed to be.
The funny thing about Person of Interest- the Assistant DA /Baddie was played by an actress who just had a rather similar role in Hung. Not a murderer- but a rather cold blooded betrayer. I guess that actress (Natalie Zea) specializes in playing that Black Widow character.
I was suspicious just by her casting- although the computer guy stressed one too many times that the might be the criminal- not the victim.
Note that the”twist ” in the plot is based on the standard trope that the pretty woman is usually an innocent.
She plays a regular on FX’s Justified, as the assistant DA ex-wife of the main US Marshall character who has a habit of getting into trouble (him more than her). They got back together in the show. So I wouldn’t typecast her as a female baddie.
20/20 is an ABC series. How can it be on TLC?
Harry,
It was a “20/20 on TLC” special sort of thing. I wonder if TLC is realizing that there’s a demographic of “women concerned for their sons” who want to watch that sort of women’s programming (weepy documentaries) but without the male-bashing.
I think it’s a blip.
And since this is the first time I’ve had a forum on the subject – something that as bothered me for years – the worst commercial is one for ATT.
Here the moron husband/father is looking for his internet connection and his absolute bitch of a 12 year old daughter goes through 60 seconds of berating him for his cluelessness and stupidity, finally telling him his cord ‘is invisible’ in a tone of voice dripping with superiority and distain while the mother stands there, impassive letting the daughter be a smart mouthed little snot.
I tried to complain to ATT but was unable to find a way to do so.
Another new show is “Prime Suspect” with Maria Bello. Female detective in an otherwise all-male squad. Every man in the show — with the exception of her wise, caring, and hip in an old-guy way father — is a complete and total ass. So I guess that nets out images of good “guys” to zero.
Sheriff Rick Grimes in AMC’s Walking Dead. The Starks in HBO’s Game of Thrones. The Band of Brothers miniseries from a decade ago. Etc. Etc. Etc. Good material is out there. If you’re watching sitcoms or commercials and getting annoyed, that’s on you and your expectations. Complain about Bravo or E or the Oprah network for not portraying men well while you’re at it. You watch what you choose, so choose better. Cripes.
There’s one for Kindle where a man and woman both want to read the same new best-seller, but the man is the one who smartly pulls it up on his Kindle while the woman declares her intention to trudge off to the bookstore. (But she sees the light in the end.)
Yes, but first they had the ad with nerdy guy struggling to read his Ipad in sunlight by the pool, and the cute ~30yo ‘MILF’ type schools him with her smarter (in that context) choice of a Kindle.
I like the one where the *wife* cuts the cheese in the car not knowing that there are new friends in the back seat.
I’ve mentioned before the curious advertising tactic of Miller Lite: nearly every commercial they have shows men as hapless buffoons. Why do they seem to think that insulting me will make me buy their product? I have news for them, if you run an ad that demeans men, you won’t get my money.
To answer the call from the author, I was pleasantly surprised to see Fox’s New Girl. In the premier, starring the wonderfully zany Zooey Deschanel (IMO, her generations’ Carol Kane), her three typically male roommates rescue her character (a temporarily emotionally fragile woman picking up the pieces of a failed romance) from a bad date that they set up. Although the guys are “typical guys,” they have a soft spot for her and tend to be protective, much as a brother would be. Instead of taking advantage of her vulnerability, they try to help her. They also get points for creative use of the “Douche Jar,” into which money must be put following an inappropriate inference, similar to a “Cuss Jar.”
Along with Castle, Bones, and a few others, I truly hope Hollywood will begin to portray men in a more realistic fashion, and not as hapless dopes. I’ll echo the sentiment of many of the commenters that I would welcome the presentation of a man and a woman intelligently tackling life’s problems together, with mutual respect and love for each other and each other’s opinions and experience. I feel certain that America would, too.
Until then, there’s always football. And golf. And NASCAR…
Here and there, sure. But look at the latest TV lineup. http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/09/23/washington-times-fall-tv-features-rotten-women/
BackwardsBoy, New Girl is just as bad as the rest.
It convinces guys they *should* be rescuing girls.
Screw that. Why should it be men’s jobs to rescue women from themselves? Let them fend for themselves just like men do.
It’s just another way society tries to ensure men remain disposable saviors.
These are the same men who listen to women who falsely cry rape and end up killing the “perpetrator”. And when it turns out that she lied about it, the guy ends up going to prison and the girl who lied goes free. http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/false-rape-culture/males-more-histrionic-than-females-over-rape-claims/
Even the “good” messages about men in the media are generally BAD.
Maybe I was bewitched by Zooey: I’m guilty. Still, I thought it was rather refreshing to see guys not being obsessed with bedding her character through lies and deceit for once. And it was they who set up the bad date and then realized their mistake.
At this point, after years of wondering why men are always portrayed as idiots, any progress is welcome.
Maybe so, but it doesn’t matter. Men have turned off the stuff and gone to more congenial channels and sites. Belatedly recognizing that they’ve alienated 1/2 the potential audience to lock in an aging Lifetime Network demo must surely make some folks think. But they’re really 15-20 years too late.
Don’t give State Farm a pass for the late night phone call spot. They lose points on the whole for their stupid “falcon” ad. In that ad the idiot husband (he even has a stupid voice and a vacant expression) buys a falcon with his savings, and all up and down the street you see men–exclusively men–hauling around crazy stupid impractical stuff, some of them with wives and some without. As man-hate goes that’s pretty overt.
I am amused that while the metrosexual GEICO caveman was once portrayed sympathetically as a victim of unfair steroetyping a recent ad set this image on its head. The latte sipping caveman served as the comic foil to the skippers on Deadliest Catch.
I suspect one reason that several reality TV shows have done so well is the presence of competent men working at often dangerous jobs.
I watch very little fictional TV because most of the shows just bore me. History Channel (when it isn’t on UFO crack), Discovery Channel, Military Channel, etc. is to my liking.
There are some shows out there showing men in a positive light. Consider the “Human Planet” series – several episodes show fathers putting themselves in grave danger to protect and provide for their children. One episode showed a Mongolian father teaching his teenaged son how to capture and train an eagle – an essential part of becoming a man in their culture. It’s a very good episode.
You might want to check out other shows like “Dirty Jobs” or “Deadliest Catch.” Both show men being men and not apologizing for it. It may be a coincidence that all three of the shows I’ve mention involve Mike Rowe. He sounds like a great guy to swap stories over some beers.
I think others here are giving both Bones and Castle (both shows I’ve actually liked) a bit too much credit.
I didn’t watch Bones last year –drifted away, might catch up by Netflix at some point — so the balance may have changed, but the male regulars except for Booth are pretty much all varying degrees of nerdy (Hodgins, Zack and the rotating Zack replacements), while the women (Brennan aka ‘Bones’, Angela, and Cam) are all beautiful, assertive and multi-talented. There was this yin-yang in Booth and Brennan’s relationship, with her being academicaly much smarter, but awkward with people, while he’s the man of action with his smarts in the more practical realm. However, all too often the writers would have her run all over him, in terms of figuring things out, in *his* realm too. And of course while she’s supposed to be a bit of a social misfit, she’s highly acocmplished in her field, a successful author on the side, knows karate, and just happens to be a well dressed knockout. He they then write sometimes as the dumb jock.
On Castle, Kate Beckett is perhaps written too much as the female supercop (apparently the two other male detectives they work with can’t think of the most obvious things w/o er having to tell them what to do.)
But my real annoyance with Castle comes from the father-daughter relationship:
it’s totally pandering to female viewers: he’s the attractive, rich, cool, caring Dad… who virtually never says ‘no’ and sticks to it. All the time when his first instinct as a Dad is to say ‘no’ to something wrt her, she talks him out of it (not wheedling but written as she is *correct*), or his mother (which relationship I mostly enjoy) steps in and makes him see why he is wrong and he relents. It’s not adding depth by having it not always be ‘Father knows best’ — rather its nearly *never* Father knows best.
Learn more about the implications of our misandry in media from “The Security Sex” in American Thinker
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_security_sex.html
2 paragraphs to wet your appetite:
“Here is how you would proceed: Portray men in sitcoms, movies, and commercials as inept, foolish, and pusillanimous; Father Knows Best must become Father Knows Bupkis. Make sure these overgrown Hollywood boys are always outshone by the female characters, who will roll their eyes at them as they come bear the wo-man’s burden. Also ensure that there are at least as many female characters in action roles as men — and don’t neglect to make them as hard and as tough, if not more so, than the fellows. And definitely show them beating men up as much as possible. Then men certainly won’t seem very strong.”
“To reinforce this, an explicit “girl power” creed must be instilled in young lasses. Be sure to tell them not only that they can do anything a boy can, but make sure they get the notion that they can do it better. You can even print up t-shirts with messages such as “Girls Rule, Boys Drool” and “Boys are Stupid; Throw Rocks at Them.” Also be sure to replace prominent male historical figures in textbooks with women — and if the latter are of dubious accomplishment, just massage the truth a little. And understand the goal here. If a woman can’t make herself feel safe and secure, it follows that a man whom she sees as inferior to her will not be able to, either. Realize that another way of saying that women like strong, wealthy, powerful, intelligent men is that they like men who seem superior. So the goal is to get girls to believe, at as young an age as possible, that men are quite the opposite.”
Be sure and catch the comments after this article and the commentary on it “Man-Bashing On The Road to Serfdom” by Elusive Wapiti on September 22, 2011
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/09/22/man-bashing-on-the-road-to-serfdom/
I can understand a bunch of old people still watching t.v. — but you guys still watch COMMERCIALS??
I watch a lot of TV. A lot!
I would suggest that how men are portrayed (compared to women) depends very much on the genre…and genre can also explain much (but not all) of the portrayal.
For instance, in investigative procedurals (like person of interest, NCIS, CSI), a woman is actually MUCH MUCH more likely to be the baddie. Considering the numbers of women in prison compared to men for serious crime, it is a major difference. Having a woman as the baddie is used because it is unexpected. It plays off our normal understanding. It is useful for the drama purpose. This means it is EASIER for less gifted writers to use this method to create appealing T.V. Master writers do not need to do this.
In a family/relational comedy, it is also easier to make the expected head of the house hold, a man, a buffoon. It is the contrast again. It makes it easier to be funny (although not easier to be witty). Once again, a gifted writer would not need to do this.
Much like comedians when you visit a comedy club. There are the really gifted and funny comedians, and then there are the not-so gifted comedians, who try to be funny by swearing every third word.
The entire series Friday Night Lights showed men in a good light.
I’ve worked in advertising so, maybe I can give some perspective on why male bashing has become so common on television.
1. women watch more television than men, which is why there are so many women’s channels on cable.
2. women tend to control household budgets
3. if you portray a woman negatively, even in a humorous manner, you’re going to get a flood of complaints and treats of boycotts from women’s groups. Men don’t do the same.
4. women make up the majority of marketing execs.
5. women tend to resent men. Not specific men, but men generally. This is something that’s been confirmed through research and probably exacerbated by aspects of the culture. So showing men being humiliated is entertaining for many women, where the same treatment of women would make both sexes uncomfortable.
trend of making the women almost exclusively smart and good
I seriously don’t know what ya’ll have been watching to think this. There have been good and evil men and women on tv always. Man dumb, wife screwish, mean lady boss, harrassing male boss, and the underlings who are generally the good guys.
Better off Ted was a great show, though. Love Ted. And Phil. And Lem. Especially Lem!
Start keeping a count.
I’m reminded of the twisted 1980s claim that classroom teachers gave more attention to boys than girls and the “OMG!!! We’ve got to DO SOMETHING for the girls!” reaction that followed. (Then somebody noticed that virtually all the “attention” boys received was a scolding in one form or another while praise was meted out almost exclusively to girls. The issue faded away, leaving only a stubborn residue of disinformation “that everybody knows” repeated over and over in womens magazines and womens studies class lectures.
Haven’t bothered to watch the “Maria Bello” show, and I probably won’t, but I’ve seen several promos during sporting events. One thing really stuck with me: one promo has the character riding in the back of a cab. She tells the driver to put out his cigarette. Driver ignores her. So she pulls out her service weapon to threaten the driver.
Really? This chick is so tough, she has to pull out a gun to get someone to stop smoking in her majesty’s presence? All minor indignities of life must be solved with threats of violence. Glad we have a woman straigthen that out for us.
I don’t see any sign of breaking the age-old formula for a sitcom family:
I don’t see any sign of breaking the age-old formula for a sitcom family:
* Dad is smart
* Mom is smarter than dad.
* The kids are smarter than mom.
* The dog is smarter than the kids.
* The squirrels in the back yard are smarter than the dog.
I don’t notice a new trend away from the current “idiot/cheating” man, nor do I expect one anytime soon. I suspect most advertisers know that the majority of household shopping is performed by women, and it seems that, like any successful advertising exec will tell you, people respond most favorably to ads that confirm their own self-inflated visions of themselves.
We have raised a generation of women who have been told, in every possible way, that not only are they strong, independent and competent individuals, but that they are the MOST strong, independent, and capable gender, and any evidence to the contrary has been a male-generated plot to continue to subvert the female gender. Parity was never the goal; only superiority will be tolerated. Thus we shall continue to see the same ads which reinforce this view.
No – Men are still the idiots of the new age.
Here’s an article on the top ten reasons men don’t volunteer at school:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/room-318669-moms-dads.html
Spoiler: reason No. 1 = no beer