The Three Most Anti-Male Commercials from this Year's Super Bowl

This article comes from the Men's Anti-Violence Council. They offer their analysis of this year's Super Bowl commercials and find three of them especially derogatory toward men in various ways. What do you think?

Superbowl 2013 Ads: New Ads, More of the Same Pandering

By mensantiviolencecouncil

It is that time of year again. Arguably one of the highest rated programs in the country, the superbowl commands top tier, star studded advertising like none other.

If you are anything like me, this might be one of the few times you stick around FOR the ads.

If economic theory tells us anything, then the sky high costs of advertising for during the superbowl (estimated to cost well over $3 million per thirty second spot) should say what companies think sells with the American public.

So what is selling these days?

Besides the usual animated babies (in space!), amazing cameos (including Seth Rogen/Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler), Clydesdales, and farmers; the super bowl also featured a number of questionable choices as well.

What do I mean by “questionable choice?” I mean that these three commercials represent some of the worst advertising gender tropes and objectifications of the game.

3. If it has boobs, men will buy it.

GoDaddy is arguably one of the worst offenders of the bunch. It ranks as number three because their efforts are half-hearted and transparent. As a technology company that builds websites, nudity and sex has absolutely nothing to do with their services or their products. Yet like the game companies that sponsor “booth babes,” GoDaddy makes a wide assumption that men, particular men in the technology field, are helpless at the sight of buxom and scantily clad women. It is an endorsement of the objectification of women as “flair” for technology products. Furthermore, as someone who fancies himself a male geek, I am offended. You can check out their video here:


2. Men who do not conform to gender codes are an object of derision

I’m a little torn on including the Dorrito’s commercial on this list, but ultimately, I think the ad falls short of its intended purpose (dorritos will make us do anything) and instead ends up casting aside the men who don women’s clothing to play tea party with their daughters as emasculated. This is shown in two parts, one of which being the mother who chastises the husband and the other in the fact that even wearing women’s clothing the men egg each other on, less like an enjoyment of the setting and more like a fraternity hazing event.

Feel free to disagree, but you can find positive images of cross dressing, but this is not one of them.


1. Women are less important than objects

Objectification of women has long been a part of media strategy. It has percolated in US culture in a plethora of ways from the phrase “I would tap THAT” (emphasis added), and Comedian Daniel Tosh who joked about how “funny” it would be if a heckler at his show was suddenly gang raped.

I’m no expert on humor, but I imagine a few women in New Delhi, Steubenville Ohio, Montana, and across the world would disagree. As a man I disagree. But such is the freedom of speech. It allows us to debate about humor but does not and should not condone violence of the most intimate variety.

Which is why Gildan’s, a t-shirt manufacture, initial foray into brand advertising was so surprising. A man sneaking away from a one night stand, clearly suffering the affects of too much alcohol, is more concerned with his shirt than the woman he slept with is disquieting in ways that the other commercials are not. Whether this was the result of trying to start a national ad campaign for the first time or some greater design, their commercial hits the number one problematic advertisement of Superbowl 2013. Not because of its overt content, but for the implicit messages that it seems to condone.


But that is just one person’s opinion. What did you think of the 2013 ads?

EDIT: Dishonorable mention goes to Volkswagon for the cooption of a Jamaican accent. It plays on stereotypical notions of accent, attitudes, and behaviors. Perhaps not the worst offender everywhere, but problematic none the less.

Charles Blow - Real Men and Pink Suits

I somehow missed the controversy around CNN reporter Roland Martin and his dumbass Tweets during the Super Bowl. Here is a brief recap of the whole thing (which really is not much, but for someone in his role, it is highly inappropriate). I wonder if Martin would have said these things to Brandon Spikes in person? He's a BIG man, and if he wants to wear a pink suit, more power to him.

This week, Roland Martin, a bombastic cultural and political commentator was suspended by CNN from his role as a political analyst on the network for Twitter messages published during the Super Bowl.

One message read: “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl.” Another read: “Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass.” 

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said the messages advocated “violence against gay people” and asked CNN to fire Martin. CNN called the messages “regrettable and offensive” and suspended him “for the time being.” Martin issued an apology in which he said that he was just “joking about smacking someone.” 

Apparently, Martin and GLAAD plan to meet and discuss the matter - this could simply be something he has to do to keep his job, but it may (if he is open to it) change his perspective to hear how others feel when he makes such degrading comments.

In his New York Times column (Real Men and Pink Suits), from which I have been quoting, Charles Blow makes an excellent argument that sums up the open-minded, compassionate perspective on multiple masculinities for which I advocate on this blog.

I follow Martin on Twitter. I know that he likes to joke and tease. I have even joked with him. So I can believe that, in his mind, he may have thought that these were just harmless jokes in which the violence was fictional and funny.

But in the real world — where bullying and violence against gays and lesbians, or even those assumed to be so, is all too real — “jokes” like his hold no humor. There are too many bruised ribs and black eyes and buried bodies for the targets of this violence to just lighten up and laugh.

We all have to understand that effects can operate independent of intent, that subconscious biases can move counter to conscious egalitarianism, and that malice need not be present within the individual to fuel the maliciousness of the society at large.

(This is not to say that Martin has been egalitarian on this front. In fact, a widely cited 2006 post on his Web site suggests otherwise. In it, he criticized the Rev. Al Sharpton for appealing to black churches “to become more accepting and embracing of homosexuality.” Martin wrote that gays and lesbians “are engaged, in the eyes of the church, in sinful behavior.” Furthermore, he said, “My wife, an ordained Baptist minister for 20 years, has counseled many men and women to walk away from the gay lifestyle, and to live a chaste life.” And he compared homosexuals to adulterers, disobedient children, alcoholics and thieves.)

Words have power. And power recklessly exerted has consequences. It’s not about being politically correct. It’s about being sensitive to the plight of those being singled out. We can’t ask the people taking the punches to also take the jokes.

And it’s about understanding that masculinity is wide enough and deep enough for all of us to fit in it. But society in general, and male culture in particular, is constantly working to render it narrow and shallow. We have shaved the idea of manhood down to an unrealistic definition that few can fit in it with the whole of who they are, not without severe constriction or self-denial.

The man that we mythologize in the backs of our minds is a cultural concoction, an unattainable ideal, a perfect specimen of muscles and fearlessness and daring. Square-jawed and well-rounded. Potent and passionate. Sensitive but not sentimental. And, above all else, unwaveringly heterosexual and without even a hint of softness.

A vast majority of men will never be able to be all these things all the time, but they shouldn’t be made to feel less than a man because of it.

And this narrowed manhood ideal has a truly damaging effect on boys.

In “Boy Culture: an Encyclopedia,” which was published in 2010, the editors point out: “Boys are men in training. As such, most strive to enact and replicate hegemonic masculinity so that they achieve status among male peers, and pre-emptively guard against accusations or perceptions that their masculinity is deficient.” The editors went on to quote a 2001 study in which a boy who does not measure up to dominant prescriptions of masculinity is “likely to be punished by his peers in ways which seek to strip him of his mantle of masculinity.”

In fact, a 2005 report entitled “From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America,” which was commissioned by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, found that a third of all teens said that they are often bullied, called names or harassed at their school because they are, or people think that they are, gay, lesbian or bisexual.

We have created this culture, and we can undo it.

Start with this fact: The truest measure of a man, indeed of a person, is not whom he lies down with but what he stands up for. If we must be judged, let it be in this way. And when we fall short, as we sometimes will, because humanity is fallible, let us greet each other with compassion and encouragement rather than ridicule and resentment.

Whatever was in Martin’s heart, what was in his Twitter messages wasn’t helpful. They may not lead directly to intimidation or violence, but they may add to a stream of negativity that feeds a culture in which intimidation and violence by some twisted minds is all too real. I don’t believe that Martin wanted that. 

Let’s show the whole of mankind that men can indeed be kind, even to other men who dare to wear pink suits.

Chrysler - Clint Eastwood - Halftime in America

This is widely considered to be the best commercial from Sunday's Super Bowl. Two years running, now, Chrysler has delivered inspiring ads that are less about their cars and more about the people of Detroit and the nation we live in (last year it was the Eminem commercial).

Clint Eastwood was the perfect spokesman for this spot - he embodies the rugged masculine strength Chrysler wanted to project, as well as the sensitivity he has become known for as a film director. 

For the most part, corporations are all about the money, but even in that pursuit, they can sometimes offer a glimpse of "our better angels." This two minute ad cost them about $14 million just for the airtime, not counting the production and the fees to the ad agency (commercials cost an average of $3.5 million for a 30-second spot this year).

Chrysler - Clint Eastwood - Super Bowl Commercial

As reported in the LA Times, two of the three writers credited with writing that ad are part of literary world, a poet and fiction writer. Interesting.

[O]f the three people credited as copywriters on the powerful Chrysler advertisement above, the one featuring Clint Eastwood that aired for the first time during Sunday's Super Bowl, one is poet Matthew Dickman.

Dickman -- whose twin brother, Michael, is also a poet -- is the poetry editor of Tin House magazine. He's got one collection, "All-American Poem," and has been published by many fine magazines, including Narrative and the New Yorker. He's won a number of prestigious awards. But none of those things makes him a shoo-in for a Chrysler Super Bowl ad.

The advertising firm that created the spot is Wieden & Kennedy, the Portland, Ore., firm known for its seminal Nike ads. Dickman, too, is based in Portland.

Maybe that explains it. But it wouldn't explain one of Dickman's co-authors, Smith Henderson. I suspect he is the short story writer Smith Henderson, a recipient of the 2011 PEN American Center Emerging Writers award.

Maybe more literary writers should give advertising a try.