Okay, I’ll confess…I don’t usually watch a lot of TV. Broadcast TV, that is; I’m certainly a TV on DVD junkie. I’ve been this way for some time, mostly because I’m a cheap bastard and I don’t want to pay for cable. Partly, though, I’ve found myself becoming more and more averse to the broadcast and cable television format. You know: the shallow programming, the veneer of caring for the customer, the shameless self-promotion. And let’s not forget the condescending and manipulative advertising! Suffice it to say, I’ve been content to avoid TV for some time. Well, sure enough, separation breeds detachment, and visiting TV periodically found me more and more amazed by what I saw.
Recently I’ve been finding some fairly fun (read “free”) content on Hulu, and as a result have found myself subject to the whims of advertisers once more. It’s not so terribly bad, I mean, the commercials aren’t as frequent as on regular TV. They show about four 30 second commercials per show, spaced at normal intervals…and it’s often the same ad over and over. So that’s fine, but I’m finding myself studying the weird world of Madison Avenue once again. What are they saying about their viewers? Is it a reflection of societies views about itself? Are we as ugly as we portray ourselves? Or are we being manipulated?
Perhaps you’ve seen this Dodge Charger ad. It’s been rattling in my head for a bit. It’s hard for it not to, since Hulu has been showing it over and over and over and over…(and knitting…and knitting)!! I can’t help wondering what this commercial is telling us about the modern male? He’s repressed, obviously. He’s unfulfilled. He stares blankly at the camera with the look of a sedated mental patient. We learn from the voice-over, that he is hen-pecked. He does everything that his horrible Nurse Rachet of a wife tells him to do. Beneath the surface he boils with rage and resentment. He doesn’t like putting his underwear in a hamper. He longs for a fruit-free breakfast! Most of all, he wishes that his wife and his wife’s friends would accept his own friends, but alas it cannot be! No man can truly like his wife’s mother, and no woman will ever get up early to walk the dog! It is the bizarre Madison Avenue world, where men only pretend to like women so that they can be allowed to drive loud cars.
Okay, I’m not entirely without testosterone. When the car finally makes an appearance, it hits upon a primal urge to drive a super rad car with a throaty growl and a Knight Rider air of mystery. But why would I need to kiss up to my wife to be allowed to drive it? And who says I’ll only clean the sink after I shave if there’s a 250 hp performance automobile in it for me down the road? Is this ad a horrible caricature of men, or is it holding up a mirror to it’s target demographic? Worst of all, could it be shaping men’s perceptions of themselves?
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