Demasculinization in the media

Men outside of their normal SinCity tough guy roles have been creeping into the mainstream and now It is getting covered in the news. The Feb 8 Brian Lehrer show covered this topic with respect to the superbowl ads.

Dodge showed men mentally submitting to their wives whims to "be allowed" to indirectly reclaim their manhood. That Manhood is currently located in a vice jar under the sink and is thematically being compensated for with said car.

In a Dockers commercial, men are walking proud without pants and Dockers says men need to put the pants back on. Then Dockers is at least also being critical of unmanly men.

Men eating Doritos at the gym? Nah that is a "stretch" of an argument.

But the What About Brian show from TV did show the main character to be a very indecisive guy. The last few episodes showed Brian painting and cleaning and fixing for two women who moved in as his new neighbors. His friend the lawyer was much more decisive and indifferent for my taste.

I think that maybe male characters of earlier decades may have been more unrealistic in the other direction, but they were something better to look forward to. Cool hand Luke, Steven Segal, Bruce Lee, Charles Bronson in his westerns, Clint Eastwood in his westerns, Vin Diesel, The Rock, Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, Pierce Brosnan in 007.

Speaking of The Rock, why is he a tooth fairy now? His image of the past has been cancelled.

This is the type of Neuro Linguistic Programming I was talking about in the earlier post. What is being advertised is not a product, but an image of man I frankly do not want to be exposed to. I am not saying we know enough about the mechanics of the rearing of boys to say what reprecutions this will have, but I do think that people I general need role models.

Well on the other hand, we have the Active.com run called Tough Mudder. The French-army-forces-designed obstacle course is a 7 mile run. The next in the series is being held in May.

Radiolab new normal human domestication