Dumb Men features many advertisement videos in which the male characters are portrayed in a negative light. In one of the more popular videos, there is a father dipping his son's feet into a plaster mixture of some sort because they can't find socks that fit their feet.
As the father dips his son's feet in the bucket, his wife returns home and calls him stupid. She then suggests that they wear Hanes Comfort Fit socks instead. In their comments of the video, Dumb Men's blogger makes a good point saying that a person would almost have to be an alien to not know that there were better sock options available.
In this video, it shows that men are not smart enough to dress themselves and that they require help from a women to make smart decisions. Although the creator of this video may not have meant any harm to how people perceive men, it is all too common that men are depicted in this manner, so this only adds to the perception of men in a negative way.
Most people see these types of videos and rather than thinking deeply about them, they merely find them amusing. What about you? Did you ever think about this commercial or a similar one on a deeper level and come to the same conclusion about the way that men are portrayed?
Shayla, I appreciate your comments, and that you have noticed the negative portrayals of men in the media. For many years this has been happening, and for this, and other reasons, I have distanced myself from television. The same negative, two-dimensional portrayals are commonly found in movies, books, and in the classroom. And it's often the basis of our humor. (comedians, comedy shows, jokes, etc) It's so pervasive in our culture that I've often seen it in the churches, where a pastor will be commenting on something, maybe a marriage, and more often than not, the man is portrayed as dull and slow, and the woman is the saving grace in that relationship. If not for her, he'd be a lost, destitute, pathetic figure. In fairness, I believe that most of the time a comment like this is made with humorous intent, and with the intent to encourage women. However, we cannot build someone up by simultaneously tearing down someone else, especially if the one we're tearing down is an important part of the other person's life (husband, father, brother, friend, etc). The result, while of a good intent, is only destructive.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, and from my observation, a big part of the reason we have this problem is because there is no dialogue from men to women. There is no real discussion, at least not in the culture at large. Why is this? It's could be for a few reasons. One of them is that men have been brought up, or have been conditioned, to be silent about their true thoughts and opinions. This is reinforced in the classroom, in the office, and at the coffee shop, at least in mixed company. If a man begins to voice his opinion, he is often shouted down or shamed into speaking only what has been pre- approved for such discussions. In other words, he can only speak what is politically correct. And further, he is told that his dissenting opinion shows that he is really a "backward, brutish misogynist, who needs to grow up", or something along those lines.
And so, there is no dialogue. That man may decide not to pursue his line of thinking, being shamed or humiliated, or just greatly frustrated, into being silent, which short-circuits any further insight and personal development. And that woman or those women will have no perspective other than their own, and the one imposed upon them by the ubiquitous, very pervasive popular culture. They will have only their own view, or the views of their fellow women, and as large and rich as that view is, they will be completely lacking in another very real, large and rich, and very different, view of the world that comes only from the men in their lives.
Shayla--This is a good new entries. Thoughtful and well developed. Missing #8, 9 & 10.
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