Criticizing Masculinity -- Gender and Sex Week 10

These two advertisements for Polysporin & Verizon Wireless are part of a unique genre of representations of masculinity. In these advertisements, men are portrayed as being unable to meet the hegemonic standards of masculinity in that they are not “tough” enough, or are not self-reliant enough to be “real” men. These men are portrayed as being idiots with little or no common sense. They are also portrayed as being disposable. They can be physically hurt or emotionally belittled because they are represented as not meeting hegemonic norms for masculinity. In the Verizon ad, for example, we see a dad being shown as moron who needs his daughter to explain the “magic” of the internet to him, and who can’t even be trusted to complete the simplest of tasks (washing the dog). Furthermore, his daughter and wife seem to treat him as nothing more than a nuisance, and when they do so, his response to them shows him not only lacking any toughness or aggression, but lacking any basic self-esteem or assertiveness.

It is interesting to consider the impact that hegemonic masculinity and social location have on the way our culture views advertisements like these as being “acceptable” or “appropriate.” If the gender of the characters in these commercials were switched, would we respond differently? If a man and his son treated a mother the way the Verizon daughter and mother speak to the Verizon father, would this blatant disrespect be culturally acceptable? In effect, these advertisements, and hundreds of others like them (and TV shows, movies, etc.) inform us that men who do not follow the rules of hegemonic masculinity cease to deserve basic respect and are acceptable to victimize. However, because men as a social group retain a great deal of social and political power, discourses that devalue them as people become more culturally tolerable (this advertisement WAS eventually removed after repeated criticisms of it being anti-male & anti-father).

While these advertisements may seem like they contain alternative discourses about masculinity, they do not. Rather, these advertisements show us the consequence of what happens to men if they do NOT “live up” to being a real man. They serve to reinforce the hegemonic by reminding us that men should be “real” men, otherwise, they are acceptable objects for us to mock and laugh at.