TV producers HATE men

©08 The Media Desk

      OK

      It's time to do it again.

      The last time the Desk sharpened this particular ax was in 2002 http://themediadesk.com/files1/tvmen.htm (link below) so it appears it is time to do it again.

      Let's hit some of the .... the.... LOW POINTS of TV advertising and shows, then we'll move on.

      According to one major restaurant chain, they see nothing wrong with using an 'edgy' cartoon character who is seen in a promotion for the character's show naked and crying while running from a doctor's office. The restaurant claims this character is of the same type as 'Archie Bunker'.
      From the Desk's recollection, and it will admit that it is not an absolute expert on the subject, but it does not recall Mr. Carroll O'Connor (1924-2001) ever behaving like that through the twelve years and nearly 300 episodes (between the two series) where he portrayed Mr. Bunker. While Archie had his faults, in the end he usually maintained some shred of his personal dignity.
      Maybe the restaurant only sees both the character and Archie Bunker as married white men.
      Besides, what does a cartoon know about how a sandwich tastes?
      [NOTE: The Desk and the restaurant chain in question exchanged emails over the ad, they declined permission to run their answer verbatim in this article. Since then, they have rotated out the cartoon ad and replaced it with a white guy that photocopies his butt. ]

      A home center was running a commercial where the husband just got a leaf blower. He has it strapped to his back while the couple are furniture shopping and uses it to blow the sales associate's hair around during the sales pitch. Of course the husband is a white man.
      And this makes us consumers want to buy...... leaf blowers or couches or.... Neither.

      Then there are the usual assortment of electronics commercials which feature men who become absolutely non-functional in the presence of high end wide screen TVs and things of that nature. When they see a shiny new ... anything with batteries or a touch screen, they must have it and price be damned.
      Well. OK. That's nice. The Desk has seen wide screen digital high definition super TV's in the wild. Complete with a college football game being broadcast in HD on it. It looked like a football game. An almost 100 inch wide football game, but still a game.
      The only difference the Desk saw was that when the annoying commercials came on, they were even harder to ignore.

      There are several restaurant chains showing commercials of white men who are sitting and eating, in some they are in a vehicle. One set features the two guys talking where evidently the subject of the conversation is 'just how stupid are we' and the other has little conversation, but one of the guys is obsessed with licking the wrapper of his sandwich to get the last bit of .... 'grease?' off of it.
      Neither campaign does anything to convince the Desk that it would enjoy the offerings of either establishment.

      And there are more. Here's a few more low points.
      A financial company can help a guy who "can't make the dog roll over".
      A Student Loan outfit with their 'screaming guy' and the fridge.
      The husband amazed by the flushing ability of a toilet, with the idea that if it clogs he can hit on a female plumber.
      A man that would rather go get an overpriced and over hyped sandwich than skinny dip with his girlfriend.
      And that idiotic 'soup guy' who is suckling like an infant at his soup container, evidently unaware that he's getting two days worth of sodium.

and there's more...
      Beer. After shave. Fast food. TV sports. 'tough' trucks...
      Men will totally humiliate themselves for a steak sauce that is made with raisin paste.
      Even a yogurt company considers men morons who will dig through their fridge looking for apple turnovers unable to read the flavor labels on the yogurt packages.
      And then there's the Erectile Dysfunction pills and Enlargement treatments.

      Let's hold it right there.
      How many men HAVE what the commercials so tastefully call 'E.D.'? What's the percentage of adult men who have the problem more than once in awhile, which, by the way, is completely natural and normal and no you don't need a pill for it.
      Overall the percentage, depending on which study you believe (some of which were paid for by the pill companies) ranges between something like 5% to about 15% of otherwise healthy adult men will report having trouble getting or maintaining an 'E' (since we don't want to offend anybody) at some point in their life. Again, this is normal.
      Smokers. Diabetics. Those with heart problems. Spine injury patients. All have greater risk of occurrence, in some cases over 50%. And of course, many of those can't take the 'E.D.' pill.
      However, through the sheer force of advertising, the 'E.D.P.C' (E.D. Pill Companies) have created a market where insecure men swallow both their tripe, and their pills, by the millions hoping to become the next John Holmes in the bedroom. There have also been reports (largely recounted from personal events) where company representatives have talked physicians into the unprovoked asking of their male patients if they want to try the pills 'just in case' with one eye on 'gifts' the physicians can earn for writing the prescriptions. This practice is actually illegal (the medical equivalent of 'payola'), but the regulators usually look the other way as the gifts are to the practice or otherwise shrouded to conceal their true nature.
      Again, for the record, even the BEST E.D. pill is not going to INCREASE any part of a normal man's physique, nor will it turn anybody into Casanova.
      As for the last bit of the above statement. There Is Nothing that will Permanently Increase the Size Of ANY body part in a Normal Adult short of Surgery. Period.
see links below.

      And now for the shows supported by these things.

      There is no way to go through the lousy televised crap that passes for entertainment these days. We would inevitably miss one or two.
      So we'll do this. How about a list of the usual suspects and you can supply the names of the shows to go with them.

      Let's see. It is entertaining....

• when a man tries to do something and cannot, and then the task is accomplished with relative ease by a woman, a child, or an animal.
• when a man becomes obsessed by something trivial or uncontrolable.
• when a straight guy is mistaken for gay.
• when a man gets hit in the testicles by anything.
• when a man is shown in an effeminate or at least a most un-masculine pose or situation.

        And of course it is known that All Men...

• are totally befuddled in the presence of a large set of mammary glands (store bought or real)
• cannot think past their first beer.
• work out by counting their exercise reps "1, 2, 9, 17, 25"
• are hopelessly outdated and clueless and need their grade school children to set them right.
• are either sexist homophobic bigoted religious zealots or out of their mind tree hugging liberal flakes, there are none in between the two extremes.
• are totally helpless in the kitchen and any cooking will result in major structural or bodily damage.
• are even more inept and helpless when their wives are giving birth.
• will talk forever about how great they were at whatever sport in high school and then go out and prove they never played the game.

        And IF a Man tries to...

• get something out of the basement, he will be locked in.
• get something out of the trunk of the car... ditto.
• drive anywhere, he will end up lost.
• do his taxes he will end up talking to a box.
• start a campfire, he will burn down a national forest.
• use a power tool, he will need the paramedics.
• ride a motorcycle... ditto.
• ice skate, climb a tree, go hunting, use a ladder... see above.

        That, and All Men Must Have...

• fancy sportscar.
• fancier clothes.
• all the latest gadgets.
• fad food and trendy beer.
• impressive collection of tools (that they cannot use).
• a trip to Las Vegas where they will do things they will not talk about with their families, and cannot afford.

AND NOW
      The WORST OFFENDER OF ALL TIME ACROSS ALL MEDIUMS AND FORMATS.

      The movie that is now ranked as THE ABSOLUTE WORST CHRISTMAS MOVIE EVER (bar none including anything by Tim Burton) and is top five, maybe even higher, as the WORST FILM EVER MADE (even passing that piece of hot air by Mr. Gore) and... is the one and only best bad example you will ever need of what we have been talking about.

      Hands down. No contest. This movie will not only try to convince you that men are idiots, there's a good chance you'll come out of it hating Christmas.
      The movie is 'Deck the Halls' as released in 2006, starring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick. Directed by John Whitesell. From Twentieth Century Fox.

      In the film, which the Desk had no choice but to sit through as part of a captive audience (on a bus no less), the writers and producers do not miss a trick to display the adult men in the movie as total dolts. Who just happen to be white of course.
      Both men are obsessive-compulsive, without common sense, and appear to have no reason to exist.
      There is the obligatory 'gay' scene in the back of a van with the two men naked in a sleeping bag together.
      One of the men becomes 'exposed' and a woman tells him "Don't put the little guy away on our account."
      One of the men is revealed to have met his wife while being a 'peeping Tom'.
      The men engage in arson, grand theft, and forgery without serious legal consequences. Not to mention vandalism and trespassing.
      We even have blasphemy for fun and profit as one of them begins to take the Lord's name in vain then changes it to a Christmas carol, to which he does not know the words.
      They even invoke pedophiliac incest and subsequent sacrilege when the two men shout out "who's your daddy" to some dancing girls that turn out to be their daughters. Then the men desecrate holy water to wash out their eyes.
      In between all of this they work in:
            drug jokes- "Who moves in the middle of the night, a meth lab?"
            promiscuity jokes- "Honey, the girls are having a great time showing everybody the lights. I pray to God that's the only thing they're showing."
            broken family jokes- " I was 7, my dad and I moved to Alabama... and Christmas morning we ate on the floor, ate French fries and drank chocolate milk."
            and even small endowment jokes- "... smuggling 'chicken nuggets'" in a track suit, as well as the aforementioned 'little guy'.
            there is even physical comedy of 'Three Stooges' violence and accidents, one of which involved an old woman, which was better done by Larry, Curly, and Moe.

      Of course they learn the 'true meaning of Christmas' a la Dickens, from their families and all is forgiven.
      And we have to mention here the total lack of scientific reality that is the point of the movie's premise where one of the men wants to light his house up so 'it can be seen from space'. For one, the house is supposed to be in the urban Northeastern US (Massachusetts) which is a severely light polluted area that is already visible from space. And then at the end of the movie when the TV people check with the space people they say they can indeed see it from some orbital platform, ignoring the fact that in the final scene it is snowing on the house, which implies an overcast sky of snow clouds which would obscure most of the state.
      It just caps an otherwise obnoxiously stupid movie that is totally without any redeeming qualities whatsoever in its interminable and way too predictable 90 minutes. (just be glad it isn't a full two hours long)
      And remember, Hollywood considers this a FAMILY Holiday Comedy movie!

Overall Conclusion

      There isn't one.
      Given the current state of Political Correctness. This is what we've got.
      And it doesn't look to be changing any time soon.
      The best the Desk can suggest is that you do not patronize the advertisers described above whenever there is another option, and you do not watch the TV shows and movies that continue it.

Thank you.

-30-

Outside Resource links will open in new window:

E.D.: http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/impotence/index.htm

Male Enhancement FRAUD Story from Fox News FoxNews.com

Even though the Desk no longer uses Wikipedia as a reliable source as a matter of principle, this article on the free encyclopedia is actually worthwhile on this subject. wikipedia.org

The Desk article on Enchancement Scams with resource links.

The original Desk TV stupidity rant as mentioned above....
And "Flame On" The other one.