People picket everything. If someone kills a rat in a movie, members of PETA will be outside ready to bark. If a TV ad depicts a woman as helpless, feminists worldwide will gather and boycott the product the ad is endorsing. If any visible minority is stereotyped, you know that the relevant community will take issue. And don't even get me started on what happens if you crack a gay joke -- but all this raises a question: Who defends heterosexual men when they are depicted as hormonal rejects?
Burping, farting, ignorant, and virtually useless; that's how the average man is depicted nowadays. Why? Well, that's easy: Because these men won't raise Cain about it. Advertisers put their money on the men because they're pretty sure that a lawsuit won't follow; we just don't get offended. But should we?
More and more it seems that women are being depicted as the intelligent, all-knowing beings, minorities are being portrayed as the wise and stylish ones, and average Joes are, well, the morons of the operation. What's going on?
FEEL THE STING
Why is it acceptable for guys to be portrayed as though they can't fend for themselves and need a woman to point out how useless they are? After all, stereotypes do stem from somewhere, so maybe most guys are virtually useless in certain aspects of their lives and need women to come in and rescue them. Yeah, right.
Granted, men have been running the corporate world since the dawn of time, but in matters of pop culture, guys are never depicted in the most glamorous fashion. In every TV commercial I see nowadays, men are controlled by either their cars, their hormones, their need for a brewski, their appetites or all of the above. Do we really have no depth to speak of? Oh wait, big breasts, 12 o'clock... I'm kidding.
Everywhere I turn, men are being belittled and no one is saying a word about it. Maybe we should start protesting every time a woman in a movie says that "all men are pigs" or that "men always think with the wrong head..." Those things just aren't true. But instead of tripping out, we just shrug our shoulders and move on. Well, I'm taking a stand, damn it.
As long as men aren't willing to draw up picket signs that say "Men aren't swine!" and walk in circles in front of movie debuts and corporate buildings, mass media will continue to portray us as though we're Neanderthals. To be clear, anyone can make fun of us because there's no harm in doing so.
YOU'RE SO INSENSITIVE
There are commercials that show women fantasizing about their perfect man, when in reality they're boyfriends are fat couch potatoes. But let's say we turned the tables and showed a commercial where there was a fat woman whose boyfriend was imagining that she was perfect? Man, I could just imagine the drama. It would be the hot topic on Entertainment Tonight and you'd have Rosie O'Donnell speaking out about the injustices against big women.
Fat women of the world are angry...
Would fat guys start tripping on a company because they depicted them as undesirable? No, they face the facts and don't cry out to anyone who will give them airtime. They suck in their guts (as best they can) and take it on the chins. Why? Because they're men -- they're not going to get all "girlie" about it.
It seems that the media has to walk on eggshells when it comes to hurting women's feelings, taking a stab at a gay guy or worse, mimicking stereotypes regarding any minority. But when it comes to men, hey, that's fair play -- take your best shot, it's a free-for-all.
OH MY GOD, THAT'S ME
So perhaps I'm contradicting myself right now considering that I'm complaining about the way men are depicted through the media, but perhaps I can open a door that will either make the media more sensitive toward men (which is not my intended goal) or rather, encourage everyone else that walks this planet to chill out and stop taking everything so damn personally (bingo!).
Yes, blond, surgically-enhanced women are typically represented as ditzy, but that's because they usually use their looks and not their brains to get what they want; homosexual men are portrayed as fashionable because the majority of them dress like stars; and members of the black community are shown rapping or playing basketball because they dominate those industries. There's no need to get all emotional about it.
Now that I've brought this issue to your attention, I'm sure you'll start watching TV, movies and advertisements differently. And although I recommend bringing it to people's attention, please don't gather up your buddies and have a *****-fest in front of NBC. Then again, maybe we should start mocking all these "sensitive" people.
