There is a new phenomenon in the commercial business! It's called the idiot husband commercial (or so I like to say). It's no news that any advertising having to do with the home and children almost always features a female main character, so I was surprised when I started seeing more and more dads and husbands in domestic commercials. Then, I started to notice a trend; all the men were idiots! So why is it that when a male character is depicted as single he is surrounded by women, driving brand new sports cars, having fun with the guys, but when depicted as married he turns into a complete moron? I have lots of different theories. Maybe by adding a wife and home life into the equation automatically makes men incompetent. Maybe just by being in the vicinity of home makes him lose all common sense. Whatever the reason behind these commercials, there is a pattern in the world of advertising; If a man is depicted as single in a commercial, he is competent, successful, and attractive. When he is depicted as married, he loses all common knowledge and judgment. For example a Pepto-Bismol commercial shows a wife who called the Pepto-Bismol hot line because her husband got into some dog treats. Another commercial shows a man eating a hotdog, while his wife is vaccuming in the background. He turns with his mouth full of hot dog and says "do da thding, lets do da thding." She proceeds to play a famailiar ballpark song on the piano while rolling her eyes and shaking her head in disapproval. Apparently, he is trying to get that 'ballpark flavor' from his hotdog. Unfortunately it doesn't work (suprise). There are countless other commercials like the Lysol commercial that shows a man trying to make breakfast, getting grease everywhere while feverishly trying to flip an egg, and on the verge of a meltdown. The wife comes to his aid and wipes the grease up with a Lysol disinfecting wipe and the family takes a sigh of relief.
This new phenomenon is harmful to everyone. In a society that has (hopefully) moved past the notion that men and women do seperate and different work, commercials are still living in the fifties. These ads are putting men in there place (ie not in the home) when trying to help with their domestic duties by making them look moronic and ridiculing them. I believe that humans are a product of their environment and this annoying persistance of stereotypical gender roles in commercials just makes progress of really seeing men and women as having equal roles in the home almost impossible. The more we see something, the more likely we are to accept and adopt those values as our own.
More idiot husband commercials.
Chore Wars
Well Past Her "Sell By" Date.
14 years ago
I completely agree. It’s so often that men are characterized as the “buffoon” in the home, leaving the woman to ‘pull it together.’ It’s a role that seems to put a naturalist idea in people’s heads that women are the cleaner uppers in the home and the men play a very small part. Woman are so likely to be the ones whose cooking dinner, cleaning the house, watching the kids even cleaning up after her husband and being the provider for him and his ‘needs.’ It makes me really angry, because we all very well know, men are 100% capable! While this idea is set, men are out gallivanting around as you said; the single man is portrayed as rich intelligent and with lots of women all over them. There again, women are down played as when they are single they still go after the men with all the riches and so on, never being the other way around with the woman making the most of herself. Will this ideology ever change? Even a little bit?
ReplyDeleteI think your post is insightful. The husband is too often portrayed as a complete idiot. It isn't limited to working class men either. Take for example the character of Cliff Huxtable on the Cosby show. This is a man who worked professionally as a physician, yet he was a completely incompetent buffoon when it came to fixing anything in the house. Although "Cliff Huxtable" shared in the house work, cooking, and child rearing, he still missed the mark when it came to "domestic" common sense. An example is when his character allowed his youngest daughter, "Rudy," to dress in clothes that were not for the correct season. I feel that when the producers and writers portray the idea that women should be at home taking care of things they imply it's because males lack proper judgment to do things correctly. It is as though a woman’s place is in the home and issues would not arise if she was home.
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