XX Factor: the blog

Could Male Unemployment Explain the Dodge Charger Super Bowl Ad?

The 44th Super Bowl was a fairy tale for the New Orleans Saints—and a bad dream for the women who made up one-third of the television audience. Over at The Sexist, Amanda Hess has graciously compiled all of the most egregious instances of sexism, racism, and homophobia broadcast during the commercial breaks last night. None of them are funny. Most of them are downright offensive. But all of them, Hess points out, were approved by CBS.

Here it’s important to out CBS as complicit in all of the advertorial programming shown during the Super Bowl—most of which was ineffectual at best, dangerous at worst. And as Dana Goldstein reported last week, CBS made particular overtures to Focus on the Family, offering the same “guidance” it administers to all wannabe Super Bowl advertisers on what would be “appropriate” for their anti-choice advertisement starring football star Tim Tebow. But by allowing the barrage of misogynistic (‘milkaholic’ babies fighting over a howling 'wolf'?) ads to blanket the year’s most-watched evening of television, CBS has done both short- and long-term damage to women’s well-being.

Based on some informal friend-polling, I’m not alone in thinking that these ads were some of the worst cases of lady-bashing in Super Bowl history. But if Mad Men has left any practical lesson, it's that the glamourous cadre of Madison Avenue hacks are also pop psychologists plugged into the elusive id of America, knowing what we want and how we want it before we do. What’s more, companies dropping upwards of $1 million on airtime surely focus-grouped each spot within an inch of its life.

So someone in the midlife-male group that's the target demographic for Bud Light, GoDaddy.com, or Doritos liked these ads—thrilled to them, even. What could possibly justify the attraction? Economist Brad DeLong flags a graph that may hold some explanatory power.

Men ages 25-54 are experiencing their lowest level of employment in the United States ever. Despite the recession, women are doing compratively well: Unemployment for men of all ages is at 10.8 percent, while only 8.4 percent for women. (Black men are at 17.6 percent.) And the precipitous drop since the beginning of the recession means that there are fewer men who can fulfill the hetero-normative cultural diktat to be “master and commander” of their domestic lives. Reihan Salam's essay on "the death of macho" laid out the emotional terrain:

[A]s men get hit harder in the he-cession, they’re even less well-equipped to deal with the profound and long-term psychic costs of job loss. According to the American Journal of Public Health, “the financial strain of unemployment” has significantly more consequences on the mental health of men than on that of women. In other words, be prepared for a lot of unhappy guys out there—with all the negative consequences that implies.

In other words: These men may not be carrying lip balm, but they are out of work and mad as hell.

The facts on the ground are not funny—families are doing more with less, less with less, and pride is being swallowed with every unanswered resume sent out. Sublimating these anxieties into that quietly violent Dodge Charger ad is therefore manipulative in the extreme (and pointless: If my theory holds, brand-new, $30,000 cars should be out of reach for this audience). Whether the commercials interpret the present or predict the future, this ad trend—like selling your wife for tires—should be roundly condemned.

Photograph of man by Photodisc/Getty Images.

Comments

Seriously, give it a rest

By: tonydavisnelson | Tue, 02/09/2010 - 23:39

I have to suffer through countless ads featuring idiot males being saved/corrected by some all-knowing woman. You can either suck it up for a few hours or change the channel.

And by the way, Danica is a suck-ass driver. My 5 year old could lap her.

Blue Lucia, that's exactly

By: autumnpaz | Tue, 02/09/2010 - 18:52

Blue Lucia, that's exactly why it's sexist: The ad had the opportunity to show the thrill of driving as an escape from everyone's humdrum life, or at least show men (they are the target audience, after all) trying to free themselves from the shackles of their crappy jobs, which is, after all, the problem in this economy. Women are not the problem, and Dodge took a supremely sloppy path in trying to tell men that they should be fed up with us making them watch vampire movies.

I've got nothing against slick, sexy cars, but to rely on the laziest stereotyping of marriage out there shows a complete lack of ingenuity on Dodge's part. The Superbowl is supposed to be the showcase for the entire commercial industry, and this is what they give us? C'mon!

really?

By: Bonnie Prince C... | Tue, 02/09/2010 - 16:58

Did you even see the Tebow ad? If so, I'm stunned how you could call it anti-choice. "He almost didn't make it into this world" equals trying to take women's choice away? How dare Ms. Tebow even obliquely advocate that a woman think hard before considering an abortion. Yes, let's ban this type of ad!

Who exactly is anti-choice here?

Feeling like an accidental traitor to feminism...

By: blue lucia | Tue, 02/09/2010 - 16:58

Do I have to turn in my feminist card for admitting that not only was I emphatically NOT offended by the Charger commercial, I thought it was among the funniest of the night?
.
Yes, it played on stereotypes about gender roles within marriage. So what? Why isn't it okay to market the idea that this car will make guys feel powerful and sexy when they drive it? That it will be thrilling and lift them from the doldrums of the million tiny compromises we make when we commit ourselves to living in a family unit?
.
The commercial was about men, sure, but the weight of those compromises, and the desire for excitement, transcend gender lines. I gotta admit, at the end of the commercial I was imagining an advertising-pretty version of myself roaring down the highway -- and feeling pretty darn powerful and sexy.

from an "Angry Man"

By: walterits85 | Tue, 02/09/2010 - 16:50

Really?! try watching football on none superbowl days, Come one ladies give me a break the one day you watch football your going to cry over the commercials? i watch every football game every single sunday rain or shine, as a loyal JETS fan and, news flash ladies these are the commercials targeted to men, cars, viagara, beer, financial services and stupid slapstick commercials making fun of the henpecked male by his wife or girlfriend. Just because you want to watch the one sunday of football doesnt mean that ad men are not going to cater to their target audience which are MEN. Seriously now, men dont cry every minute when we are forced to watch the perpetually none ending sitcoms and commercials with the dumb fat dad and hot smart wife (everybody loves raymond, king of queens etc...) or cry that during the deperate house wives finale being dumped their are no beer commercials instead of products being catered to women. really stop reading into things.. thats the problem with this site and devalues alot of the legitimate feminist stances held, by focusing on the binality of commercial,lets not forget the numerous tiger woods articles written by this site. because industrial jobs are being loss traditionally held by men we take our anger out on women give me a break!! if anything its the consistent political correctness and not being able to enjoy the big games with the buddies witout having to worry about getting some women upset over a dumb commercial that will get a man angry. I honestly think alot of the women on this site take joy in men losing work in larger numbers.. thats nothing to be happy about the results can be crime, drug abuse etc.. not angry commercials

SIGNED,
"ANGRY MAN"

Misanthropic AND misogynist!

By: autumnpaz | Tue, 02/09/2010 - 16:47

Perfect example of how sexism is just that--not always anti-woman (or anti-man). Nobody comes out ahead when these lazy stereotypes are proffered as the best that advertising has to offer.

These ads were a case of a straw audience: Willblogforfood, you're right--individual men, for the most part, aren't taking out their economic woes on women. (Some do, I'm sure--probably more than women do to men because of the cultural status of man-as-breadwinner.) And women are feeling just as disempowered by the economic climate as men. So these ads were speaking to nobody, except only the basest of the base.

Never thought I'd long for a return to beer-and-babes advertising...

Just Plain Disingenuous

By: willblogforfood | Tue, 02/09/2010 - 15:09

"I’m not alone in thinking that these ads were some of the worst cases of lady-bashing in Super Bowl history."

How, may I ask, did the Dodge Charger commercial offend you as a woman? If it's offensive to anyone, it's men. Am I to believe that, as a man, I must subject myself to daily humiliation and emasculation by women? That their needs must constantly be placed above my own? Am I to believe that my quiet life of desperation became that much more desperate?

The correlation you draw between male unemployment and these "sexist" Super Bowl commercials is desultory at best. In point of fact, the tropes and stereotypes recycled in these commercials are as old as the first television sitcom to portray a nagging housewife and her henpecked husband. Is "Everybody Loves Raymond" sexist? Perhaps, it is. But please don't stand on a soapbox claiming that men are out of work so they take it out on women. It's just plain disingenuous.

(By the way, the going rate for 30 seconds of advertising during the Super Bowl is upwards of $2.5 million, not $1 million.)

Oh and @Buggie, please elaborate on how advertisements for pregnancy tests and tampons are just more examples of "what [women can] do for men?"

But aren't some women in the

By: buggie | Mon, 02/08/2010 - 15:22

But aren't some women in the same position? We've been stomped on by government, employers, culture, and partners for all of history, and there weren't any adds last night telling us how to regain our feminitity, or telling us to feel proud of it. Oh, maybe that's because women don't watch the superbowl, surely they have adds like this during the lifetime movie of the week? Fist of all, *everyone* watches the superbowl whether you're male, female, or care about football in the least, so that's a stupid way to look at it anyway. But you don't see commercials showing men bringing down women or oppressing their true nature. No, even during "female" television, the ads are still "what can you do for men?" the ads are household cleaners, birth control pills, pregnancy tests, tampons, hair removal creams, make up.

May not be so bad

By: alkali | Mon, 02/08/2010 - 14:36

Based on some informal friend-polling, I’m not alone in thinking that these ads were some of the worst cases of lady-bashing in Super Bowl history. But if Mad Men has left any practical lesson, it's that the glamourous cadre of Madison Avenue hacks are also pop psychologists plugged into the elusive id of America, knowing what we want and how we want it before we do.

True to some extent, but what the ad wizards don't know is how all the ads will look together. A little bit of "don't you hate it when your gf makes you go shopping?" kind of humor is fine, but it leaves a lousy impression when it's the ninth such ad. I'm sure there was some panic among the advertising types when they realized that everyone seemed to have the same idea this year.

Best line (from Ezra Klein, on twitter): "You know, I liked these Superbowl ads better when they were a Susan Faludi book."

$30,000 cars should be out of reach

By: wavevector | Mon, 02/08/2010 - 13:55

"Mad as hell" sentiments are not confined to unemployed males. Strong emotions like these are contagious and spread easily to men who are employed but who feel their security or advancement opportunities are threatened.

Many men feel that we have a government that does not represent our interests, an economy that does not value our labor, an educational system that does not suit us, and female partners who are condescending and controlling. If only a Dodge Charge could solve our problems.