In Jamie’s very tendentious post about commercials that make fun of men, he accuses me, more or less, of sharing a critique, with the Men’s Rights Advocates, of a certain type of man-as-doofus commercial. He writes:
I guess when it comes right down to it, such ads are arguably unfair to men, but I think that men have a long, long time to wait before they (we) start complaining about being portrayed as lazy and/or not-so-bright, objectified and held to unreasonable standards of beauty. As men have said to women from time immemorial, "C’mon honey, relax, it’s just a joke."
But Jamie forgets (or conveniently chooses to forget) that I very clearly dissociated myself from the MRA critique of these kinds of ads. Here, for example, is one ad that MRA ubermensch Glenn Sacks doesn’t like:
And here’s what Sacks said about it:
In this Pizza Hut ad, mom and the kids are horrified that dad is going to make dinner, because, of course, he can’t cook and only hip, smart mommy knows how to take care of the kids and run things.
The commercial is supposed to be funny, and I suppose it would be if it weren’t the thousandth time I’ve seen the "dad as idiot" theme. Chris, the reader who sent this to me, asks, "Why are men always the butt of the joke?" and that’s about how I feel, too.
In the picture, the mother, who’s assigned the standard role of "yes kids, we know dad’s a fool but don’t say anything," is shocked–shocked!–that hubby came up with a good dinner. A good dinner he bought at Pizza Hut, of course.
And here’s what I said about what Sacks said about it:
I find the ad moronic and offensive as well. The difference, of course, is that I don’t see that the cumulative effect of such advertising is, as Sacks seems to see it, to privilege America’s women over its men.
Hip, smart mommy isn’t the winner any more than doofus dad is. The only winner is Pizza Hut, and a voracious capitalism that exploits sexual anxiety, insecurity and hostility to sell us stuff. That Pizza Hut, and Everybody Loves Raymond, and every Will Ferrell movie, and a million commercials, tell the women how superior they are to their husbands is scant, and Pyhrric, consolation for still being expected to do most of the work around the house and for having husbands whose simmering resentment and insecurity are being stoked at the same time that they’re being told that it’s okay, basically, to be a doofus.
That Sacks and his allies don’t see this isn’t surprising. It’s too abstract an analysis for people who are so immersed in their anger that nothing but a concrete object for it (i.e. women) will do. They need a bad guy (gal, that is), or a team of villains (feminists), to blame, not an incredibly complex system that generates an immense amount of wealth and a certain kind of freedom to do what one chooses but that also obliterates tradition, erodes a sense of common purpose, commodifies everything, and subordinates family to wealth accumulation.
As I re-read my ringing denunciation of capitalism, I’m not so sure that I’m so sure about that analysis anymore (I guess if I’m not so sure that I’m so sure then I’m just not so sure: not-so-sure x sure = not-so-sure). Maybe it’s not so much that capitalism needs gender conflict to sell things, though that might be true, as it is that at some point the ad wizards who sell widgets to the masses just figured out that the dad-as-manchild/mom-as-grownup template manages to serve the double purpose of, on the one hand, flattering women consumers, by telling them how great they are, and consoling male consumers, by telling them it’s okay to be the manchild and to delegate the grownup responsibilities to the womenfolk (and to buy pizza instead of cooking for the kids).
Or, alternatively, it’s a way that the patriarchy subtly undermines the reservoir of female discontent that might otherwise manifest in feminist politics by offering women symbolic compensation, and a kind of pop cultural catharsis, for having to take on the greater burden of responsibility in the family despite the fact that family, in most of the important ways, tends to revolve around the man’s desires.
I haven’t figured out exactly what’s going on, in other words, but I’m pretty sure that it’s neither part of a feminist conspiracy (as the MRAs would have it) nor a kind of harmless revenge on the men for lording it over everyone else for so long. Somehow, it’s both anti-male and anti-feminist.
