By Pat Rossiter, YOUTH Forum Program Manager
I'm told 50 years ago, ads like this would have been commonplace perhaps even de rigueur, as it were.
Thank heavens we've moved on. We've evolved into a culture that believes, with the possible exception of Michelle Dugger, women needn't be barefoot and pregnant. We now know that girls can grow up to be anything from astronauts to zoologists (inclusive). Good for them!
And now the bad news...
Instead of misogynistic leanings in our advertising we have replaced it with misandrony.
Case and point:
This Multigrain Cheerios commercial. Some poor dim witted guy makes an off hand remark, likely meant to support his morbidly obese wife's ongoing struggle to "drop a few pounds," and he is immediately attacked, emasculated and harassed into submission.
How about this gem? So another poor dim witted guy is sitting there trying to do his taxes online. Implied in the ad not only is that the guy is completely incapable of doing something so complex as answering questions from the program, but further, due to his lack of evolutionary progress (compared to his highly advanced wife) he is unwilling to seek out help (emotionally stunted no doubt). My guess is, that had this been a real scene in a husband and wife's lives the next line would have been something like, "Then YOU do the ******* taxes! And, while you are at it, go and get a job to pay the $250 to have it done." ...but that is just a guess.
And one more...Evidently, this Phd. candidate woman and her brilliant ubergenius-med-school-attending-eight-year-old, live in a house with a highly functioning mental deficient. Such charity on their part...
So, bad news boys...if you take messages from the media we are in sorry shape. We are only good for watching TV, playing video games, and generally being dumb as fence posts. Maybe in another 50 years, we too will be able to contribute to our culture.
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