Wednesday, January 24, 2007

WASP-y Men of the Square Table

As if we didn't already know white men are the most privileged demographic in America, Miller decided to throw it in our faces a bit more with their new Man Laws ad campaign. Just in case you didn't know what a "real" man is, these guys are here to tell you. Spouting such crap as "A real man never asks for help opening his Miller" and listing violations from across the country, Miller is just reinforcing gender stereotypes. The commercial itself shows a group of white men (with maybe one token black guy) sitting at a square table, completely isolated from the outside world. The cowboy's chick comes to the window, scantily clad, and all the guys excuse him because, you know, the only thing more manly than sitting around dictating social policy with other men is getting some. So that's ok.
A better Miller commercial and ad principle in general: NOT LIMITING AND DEFINING YOUR CONSUMER BY SUCH NARROW MARGINS. But, you know, what do I know? I'm just a woman.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi jrav!

You know, I just bet that the token black guy wasn't the cowboy who went off to get some. The point of being the token minority is that you validate the privileged white guys, but don't get above your station by thinking you're the lead in the ad or anything...

We don't have this ad in the UK yet, but I was just thinking about blogging about the Coke Zero ads running at the moment in the UK, which are equally irritating. The idea is that Coke Zero is Coke without the drawback of all that sugar, and this tosser (pardon my language) leads a big march of twentysomething blokeish men along, all drinking Coke Zero, and talking about how great it would be if you could have things without the drawback. One of them is "girlfriends... without the five year plan". Because as we all know, all women want to get married, plan their lives in minute detail and men must be trapped into any kind of commitment because by nature they're all alleycats. Because wouldn't it be great if relationships were just about servicing men's sexual needs, because men don't want relationships with a future, right?

Ahhh, I feel better having got that off my chest!

jrav said...

Don't worry about "tosser" - I don't even know what that is ;).

I know exactly what you mean, though. It's so insulting to be thought of in that way, especially since I've come across my share of men who are hell bent on getting married. Imagine their surprise when I tell them I honestly don't.

Anonymous said...

"Tosser" is really just "annoying, arrogant idiot" but for some reason is slightly rude. Not very, though - you can definitely get away with it before the watershed!]

It just feels lazy that the advertising execs fall back on stereotypes all the time - they don't even try to find another possible way of selling the product that doesn't turn off about half the audience immediately.

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