The Decay of Equality

I find myself incredibly annoyed by ads on TV lately, not only for their content, but for what they represent. And that is this weird backlash against the equality of women and men. It’s the same attitude that makes me despise Stephenie Meyer for the entire Twilight fiasco in which her "heroine" is a useless lump for three entire books and for a big part of the fourth as well. The message apparently being that if you have useful skills (Alice) or a kick-ass attitude (Rosalie), you aren’t worthy of being the main character and will have only a tiny little back story that no one remembers.

Sorry, I’m having severe hate for all the true Mary Sue characters out there at the moment and Bella is one of the worst. But not the worst. Gah! Ever read "Look Homeward, Angel" by Thomas Wolfe. His portrayal of Eugene Gant is enough to make me want to reanimate his corpse just so I can kill him. Nobody ever said classic literature was free of Mary Sue-ism, but a warning would have been nice.

Anyway, back to the ads.

The first culprit is Hillshire Farm. Some of you may recognize this one since I just recently bitched about it on Facebook, so bear with me.

Now, unless "husband" has recently become a euphemism for "mentally and physically handicapped," that man is perfectly capable of making his own fucking sandwich. He can use the big boy knife and everything. Even the kids are probably old enough to slice a tomato with supervision. So in what universe does Mom spending her time making sandwiches for other people result in her having more time for other things? Wouldn’t she have a lot more time for whatever she wants to do if she said "Hey guys, there’s sandwich stuff in the fridge. I’m going out with the girls. Have a fun afternoon!"?? It’s like the people who made the ad took the whole "Make me a sammich" shit and thought it would be funny and failed miserably. This ad belongs in 1958, not 2011. Seriously, the message here is "I love my family so I cater to their every whim." What the hell is that about?

Next up, a shining example of douche-baggery. Every single Keystone Light commercial featuring "Keith Stone." I’ll only share one here.

As if that vapid, little girl voice weren’t bad enough, a side ponytail, really? Kidding. But in all seriousness, if she doesn’t eat red meat, why the hell did she even walk up to the grill? And she falls for that guy?! I’d be more inclined to kick him in the balls. He looks like he hasn’t washed his hair in a week, or even brushed it. And the clothes look like he took a bath in used motor oil, which is quite frankly, probably the only bath he’s been near in quite some time. He’s dirty and gross and an asshole. There’s another ad with him at a roller rink where instead of just putting down the massive case of beer, he makes the girl with the broken leg hold it while he pushes her around the rink. Real fucking smooth. And females everywhere are supposed to swoon? What the fuck? Put a little fucking effort into and maybe I won’t be inclined to smack you with the damn fish.

Last, I’m going to focus on the Toyota Highlander ads.

Seriously kid, if you ever acted that way in front of me, I’d smack the shit out of you. Aside from the fact that it portrays this kid as feeling superior to all adults, it legitimizes that feeling of superiority. As if what the kid thinks is cool has anything to do with what kind of car a parent buys or doesn’t buy. Maybe if it was a little girl this wouldn’t be so bad, but it still marginalizes the person who made the decision to buy the car and who paid for the damn thing. Another way of saying that if you love your family, you will cater to their every whim. Great way to raise children.

There are others that just annoy me, but that don’t fit the model of woman-bashing that I’ve set. The DirecTV ad where all the guy’s friends and coworkers sprout Benjamin Franklin heads… basically saying that my friends are only worth as much money as I can get through knowing them. The air conditioner ad with the guy beating himself up over wanting it cooler when he’s wearing pants and a flannel shirt… seriously, dress for the weather. Every Charmin ad with the bears, but especially the one with the pieces of toilet paper left on the little bear’s butt… he can’t pass Mom’s inspection! Uh-oh! But how many mothers inspect their child’s anus before leaving the house. The first ones were okay, a cute little play on the whole "do bears shit in the woods?" thing. It’s old now. The iPad commercial where he hands her the tablet and she does all these wonderful things… all with the iPad firmly in front of her nose the whole time instead of actually participating in life.

I’m not talking about all the ads for cleaning products. Those have always been marketed primarily to women and I doubt anything short of a major social revolution will ever change that. Actually, since most of those focus on the time-saving nature of the products, they can arguably be said to be moving towards equality. And I think Pledge does a great job of showing that it’s used by more than just women. But some of these just make me want to put my fist through TV screen. As if women had no role other than wife and mother.

I don’t know, maybe I just watch too much TV. It’s just that it strikes me as a growing trend. And with the constant disparagement of women online… I just… what’s going to happen to little girls who are growing up now? Yeah, I was exposed to ads that depicted women as wives and mothers. But not exclusively. They were also depicted as business leaders. It was the 80’s… women were empowered. I read books about girls who did amazing things. Real heroines. So what now? We just go back and pretend it never happened? I’m not saying that men and women are the same. But they are equal.

~Liz