Well, folks,
If you were here yesterday, you may have read the rant I wrote on misogyny, and I sure hope you liked it. But I took it off a few minutes ago, but posted an almost identical paper in its place. This is the version I turned in as an assigned paper, and I tried to tie it in a bit better with itself, and tried also to not be all over the place without an excuse. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to comment, as usual. Y'all rock, Patient Readers!
So are we ready to begin? Splendid!
It’s a Mad Mad Madman’s World
Gender-Targeted
Advertising
another observation by
The Cunning Fennec Fox
Having
read the three articles recently assigned to the class, I found myself most
profoundly moved by the one entitled, “Having It His Way; The Construction of
Masculinity in Fast-Food Advertising,” by co-authors Carrie Packwood Freeman
and Debra Merskin. This was a subject I
had considered from time to time during the days in which I actually owned a
TV. I noticed a lot of things about
advertising, and I made several observations both intracranially and aloud; the
latter much to the chagrin of my friends or, with no other people present, my
cats.
Advertising, more and more as of late, seems to be heading for the poles.
I don’t mean in the literal sense of course; we don’t see advertisers packing
up camp and heading off to Amundsen Station or to Nome, Alaska (though we
consumers may see a sort of appeal to those exilic ideas . . .)
Nor do I mean advertising is headed to Gdansk to visit the monument of say,
King Sobieski or Lec Walesa.
No, I mean that more and more, at least in my observations, advertisers are
telling the rest of us that manly things are good, most of the time (since
manly things are on TV most of the time) and that Woman Things are not really
as good as Man Things, but are seemingly necessary, therefore
should and do have their place on Man’s TV. Our species’ genders are
being polarized. And food, already
associated with pleasure and reward, (neurophysiologically speaking) seemingly
spearheads this ongoing trend.
As I had stated in class, I do think that most of the programming on TV are
gender neutral, if not geared toward men specifically. Sure, there are
the channels Lifetime and O, and maybe Hallmark and some
of the shopping networks, (I think it is safe to assume that the majority of
men do not pay attention to a carnelian and copper necklace, $52.99 with a free
matching tennis bracelet and brooch if you call in your order within the next
23 minutes, long distance rates may apply, please have your credit cards ready,
operators are standing by . . .) but for the most part, I believe we can
all agree that there is a dearth of television programming that is geared
toward women specifically. I suppose yogurt could be considered
fast-food; it is higher in calories than it would be, thanks to the fruit added
to it, which should really be referred to as more of a jam or marmalade. Also, it comes in small, ready-to-eat
packages like Whitecastle sliders, though perhaps that is where the
similarities end.
The
acidophilus or other probiotic
bacteria present in yogurt may add little beneficially to the product, and I do
not recall the last time I saw a man eating yogurt in a commercial, John Stamos
notwithstanding.
I
do not think there are any ads that depict women as the primary consumers of
fast-food. Quite the opposite; Weight
Watchers and their ilk use women almost exclusively, and when a man is pitching for them he is always a
retired athlete of some sort. This is
surely to reassure the male consumer that they can diet without being perceived
as effeminate.
As with anything else, there are certain times when specific demographics are
targeted. I posit that the evening news is peppered with AARP
advertisements as well as medications that treat hypertension, osteoporosis,
atherosclerosis, atrial fibrillation, and a host of other maladies that afflict
the seniors of our society. (The irony I
so relish is the possible correlation between a junk food diet and early onsets
of most of these maladies. Did someone say relish?) And I only see women in commercials for
medications that treat mental disorders like depression, or insomnia, the
sufferer no doubt consumed with worrying about those niggling little thing that
plague only women so. I have seen the
little butterfly, glowing lavender just as she lights ever-so-gently on the
now-drowsy worry wart, medicated to peaceful slumber.
What does one see on TV early Saturday mornings? Bookending the toys and
the games and the junk cereal ads you will occasionally find a cartoon. If said
cartoon makes even a fleeting reference to a say, historical figure or the
like, they even get to put the "E"
for Educational onscreen so mommies and daddies feel safe and secure
knowing their children are “getting an education” even as said kids slurp down
those Crunchy Sugar Bombs (thanks, Calvin and Hobbes for the cereal
reference!)
What do you see close to suppertime? Applebee’s and Outback Steakhouse;
KFC and Burger King; and the age-old standby, Pizza with Delivery . . .
ooh, who can resist that when you can almost smell it through the screen? With the voice-overs invariably male, it’s
obvious that real men eat meat. A local
pizzeria offers the Mama Pizza and the Papa pizza. Take a guess as to which one is the
meat-lover’s specialty.
And
these ads are shown early in Prime Time, during the adolescent-oriented (at least
mentally and emotionally) sitcoms, which are basically 22 minute jokes about
bodily functions, and chock-full of innuendo, double entendre, or just flat out
Heavy Sexual Dialogue and Content. Again, the situations listed are more
for men than women, or boys rather than girls.
Let’s not omit sports on TV. Who can forget Janet Jackson’s wardrobe
malfunction at the Super Bowl and the ensuing nationwide outcry? “Off
with their heads! (She and Justin Timberlake were equally vilified) “How
DARE they contaminate us with their naughtiness and her Naughty Bits . . .?
All while the parents, especially (presumably)
Dads, are bombarded with commercials for beer and Magic Erectile Dysfunction
pills or elixirs, (all of which include scantily-clad cheerleaders or barroom
wenches for the beer ads, and an attractive and seemingly interested mate for
the E.D. medication ads, if the curiously raised eyebrow and come-hither
gestures as per off-camera direction are any indications.) Go to Hooters
and get your wings! I have yet to see a Hooters-type restaurant for women, and I
shudder at what it would be named.
Beer
and Viagra -always a sound combination: liquor and libido . . . just look at
the arrest logs at the police stations nearest your local colleges, especially
on weekends and after football (manly American
football, not that girly-girl soccer). Not to mention the rise in
hospital visits treating the fairer sex for trauma and the increase in mental
health counseling . . . Advertising can be devastating to women in
general and coeds specifically. What do you think it is that makes Mike’s
Cider so Hard, anyway? More Food for
Man’s Appetites.
Alas, I leave the trail of my thesis for but a step and sure enough it leads to
Tangent Road.
Freeman and Merskin in Having it His Way . . . make several points with
which I agree, one of them being: “Anthropologists have documented the
historical connection between males and domination of nature and other animals
such as evidenced by humans’ traditional role as animal hunters.” We males literally bring home the bacon.
Pre-historic
society, particularly the Hunter-Gatherer phase of human evolution, was indeed
a matriarchal one. When Man was off drinking beer and killing things, Woman
was the one who brought forth life from the earth, the sweet loam from which
sustenance magically appears, and pretty reliably so. Grunting Man was
not always successful with his spear.
There
were midwives, whole groups of women from the Clan that pitched in their
opinions and their expertise each time an infant was born. No baby born nor
mother laboring, especially the first-timers, were alone in their anxieties or
fears. That was before the Patriarchs decided menses was dirty and
relegated Woman to The Red Tent every 28 days or so.
The wise old woman from whence erroneous legends of the witch (not Wiccan, no
nasty letters, please) emerge, was really the first doctor in our
society. Who better to make medicines out of the herbs, spices, and roots
the earth offered up than the gender who planted them in the first place?
In Genesis, the First Book of Moses, the first book in our Christian Bible and
the Talmud of Judaism, Cain slew Abel. We all know this from Sunday
school. But the name Cain is similar to the ancient word khayyan, which
means “smith.” Now interestingly, it was Abel who was the shepherd, the
brother whose sacrifice was better than Cain’s because for some reason, (it’s
not clear in the Book) the Lord respected Abel’s sacrifice of his newborn
firstlings (lambs, not human babies) and of the fat thereof, but “. . . unto
Cain and to his offering He had not respect.” (Genesis 4:5; The
Holy Bible, KJV)
Is it possible that this was a symbolic story? The usurping of a
semi-nomadic, agricultural society, migrant farm workers if you will, by a
“smith?” Someone who learned the Dark Magick of alchemy- someone who
could pull metal from stone!
Smith was someone who made warfare more brutal and efficient than ever
before. Could the Abel and Cain story simply be a fable, an effective
metaphor that illustrates that a Miller Smith is somehow more technologically
advanced than an Abel Shepherd? Does it say new stuff is bad and old
stuff is good? Is it illustrating the evils of technology? The
simpler times of yore, etc.? (Did someone say mutton?)
I do not truly digress, here. I am coming back around to my point that
somewhere when we, Men I mean, came up with the idea that god made us in his
image, we decided that god was indeed the image of man. Our Heavenly Father
placed us so in charge of the planet that we, well Adam, got to name all the
critters. (Platypus? Really, Adam?) Adam probably named all the cuts of meat (filet mignon via Cro Magnon) that Burger King now grinds into our
cheeseburgers. Why didn’t they name
their company Burger Queen, anyway? Mrs. Fields would have tossed her cookies.
Lilith was Adam’s first wife in some of the extra-biblical stories. She stormed
off because she did not want to be subservient to Adam, and Adam was a whining
little child. So then god made Eve, and the reason why god made for Adam
only one wife was because there was no way that Adam could take all the
ribbing . . . (Did someone say ribs?)
Women were no longer able to be priestesses, and the only one who came close in
the Old Testament was the Witch of Endor.
Yet she was portrayed as a quasi-evil charlatan whose one true act of
necromancy came via god who was so sorely
beseeched by Saul. (1 Samuel 28: 7-25; The
Holy Bible, KJV)
And what of the other powerful women
of Scripture? In the Septuagint there is
the story of Judith and Holofernes .
. . Protestants somehow found the
Apocrypha more objectionable and unbelievable as say, The Book of Joshua.
Then there are the heroic tales of women from early Christian scripture,
removed from the Canon by Constantine et
al at the Council of Nicaea. Most notably Thecla, a disciple
of Paul who accompanied him on one of his journeys to Rome, was removed.
Hypocrisy and fear was wrought by those wise old men, their own cast
reflections glaring in her omission. Paul and Thecla can be found
in the excellent book, The Lost Books of the Bible, by Elaine
Pagels.
Thecla was caught by the Romans and sentenced
to the arena, as was a common theme for Christians in those days. Denied
thrice by Paul (who feared for his own life, as Peter did when he denied
knowing Jesus), she was mauled to death by lions. Paul slunk away like the cowardly misogynist
he was. Christians, in those times it
would seem, were lions’ fast-food.
How
was a book like this removed from the Bible in the first place? A woman
as martyr to the gospel of the One True King? Because she was a woman
martyr for the gospel of the One True King; Paul slithered away into the
crowd, and is now a saint.
Adam blamed Eve for Original Sin . . . Eve was smart enough at least, to blame it on
the snake. Apples were the fast-food
East of Eden.
It has been since the earliest days of recorded history that Ishtar, Isis and Ninkhasi had lost their places to El and Moloch and Yahweh. It was only a matter of
time that fast-food would be sexualized; just a few more pieces of meat made to
whet our appetites.
I find it strange that in the certainty there are more and more female staffers
in ad agencies, there are also more and more ads portraying women as Ice
Witches who are only career-oriented, and all they need is a hairy, chubby man
who smells faintly of Old Spice, beer, and Viagra; greasy burgers and melted
cheese and buffalo wings. Would you care for some Ranch with those?
You bet.
Freeman and Merskin stated in their
article, “While the first theme of freedom may seem contradictory to the second
theme of group loyalty, they are actually complementary as being ‘one of the
guys’ is made to seem effortless and natural.”
Are the aforementioned female advertising agents blind to anything but money?
Are they simply going along to get along? Do they smell the dollars that
their clients are willing to spend to reach their target demographic?
Surely they see that in order to reach the lowest common denominator, they
have to do some pretty slimy things to get down there.
It’s bad enough that men took the night away from women. How Night has
been made unsafe in so many places around the world should be embarrassing to
those of us who empathize. Do we have to make debasing women as ordinary
as eating a steak? Do we really need to
make it as satisfying as massaging the reward centers of our brain like sex and
food actually do?
Perhaps
there are no more Theclas. At least none in advertising where
martyrdom is needed so badly . . . and probably needed the most.
Works
Cited
Freeman,
Carrie Packwood and Debra Merskin “Having It His Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food TV
Advertising.” They Say I Say With Readings 2nd Edition, eds. Gerald
Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 454-479.
Print.
The Holy Bible, King
James Version
No comments:
Post a Comment