The way the advertising industry portrays men has drawn increasing scrutiny in both the trade press and the mainstream media. Defenders of the status quo — in which men are depicted as irresponsible fathers and lazy, foolish husbands — are starting to feel outnumbered. It’s an understandable feeling.

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The evidence is clear: “Man as idiot” isn’t going over very well these days.

Defenders of the advertising status quo generally put forth the following arguments: Males are “privileged” and “it’s men’s turn,” so it’s OK to portray them this way, and that men simply don’t care how they’re portrayed. Both of these arguments are highly questionable.

This trend in advertising has been going on for years unchecked. One of the latest examples is a Time-Warner Cable commercial showing a wife in the kitchen speaking on the phone with someone when her husband cones in, takes the lid off of a pan on the stove and all of a sudden the whole stove-top is on fire. While still on the phone, the woman calmly reaches past the quivering man and replaces the cover on the pan, therefore putting out the fire, while at the same time calling a restaurant to get food delivered for that evening’s dinner. Now, my problem here isn’t that the wife is portrayed as smart, confident, and quite able to handle these types of situations; it is that the husband is portrayed as someone so brainless that all he needs to do is walk into the kitchen and stuff starts catching on fire, after which he stands there quivering, afraid to do anything.

As far as males being “privileged”; this is just a stereotype left over from the Fifties. As the article points out, women are now earning a majority of the college degrees (both bachelor and master’s), while at the same time the majority of homeless, imprisoned, and suicide deaths are men. It is true that men make up the majority of the corporate power structure, but given some time I have no doubt that women will catch up and maybe even surpass men in this area. The point is, this is a poor excuse for the constant degradation of males by the advertising industry.

Heck, even women agree that men are getting a raw deal here:

Our campaigns have drawn widespread support from women, who generally do not like to see their sons, husbands and fathers put down. As Rose Cameron, senior VP-planning director and “man expert” at Leo Burnett, says: “One of the great markers [society] looks to about the intelligence of a woman is her choice of husband. So if advertisers position men as idiots in the husband scenario, then you’re commenting on her smarts. Women have told us, ‘If you want to get on my good side, you do not show my husband as the idiot.’”

Since it seems that both sexes agree that the negative portrayal of men in advertising is a bad thing, why isn’t the trend changing? As with most business trends, sometimes the only way to effect change is to hit them in the wallet. Personally, I try to avoid products whose advertising depicts men as clueless idiots. I figure that if enough people avoid these types of products, the manufacturers will get the hint and change their advertising concepts. Money talks.

Finally, I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m some humorless cretin who can’t take a joke. An occasional depiction of a clueless male is fine (just as an occasional depiction of a clueless female is fine), but it has gone way beyond that. In fact, the last commercial I can remember which depicted a man in a favorable light was a Gatoraid commercial showing male athletes competing. Humor in advertising is more than appropriate; many times it is essential. However, care must be taken not to cross the line between parody and outright degradation.

Today, I’d like for you to take a look at the following advertisement from the Swedish Vodka maker Absolut:

Notice anything? How about Aztlan?

The myth of Aztlan can best be explained by California’s Santa Barbara School District’s Chicano Studies textbook, “The Mexican American Heritage” by East Los Angeles high school teacher Carlos Jimenez. On page 84 there is a redrawn map of Mexico and the United States, showing Mexico with a full one-third more territory, all of it taken back from the United States. On page 107, it says “Latinos are now realizing that the power to control Aztlan may once again be in their hands.”

In an effort to sell more vodka, this company has decided to encourage radical groups like La Raza and MEChA in their quest to reacquire about a third of the United States. When called on it, Absolut responded thusly:

This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility. In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues. Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal.

As a global company, we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market. Obviously, this ad was run in Mexico, and not the US — that ad might have been very different.

How this company can claim this ad doesn’t “advocate the altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment” is beyond me. Surly these people cannot be this stupid. The aura of mistrust between Mexico and the U.S. with regards to immigration matters is palpable enough to smell anywhere in the world. It’s practically in the news every single day. One person who doesn’t buy the stuff Absolut is selling is Michelle Malkin, who says:

But first: The advertising firm that created the Absolut Reconquista ad is Teran/TBWA. Teran is based in Mexico City. The company’s website boasts a pretentious statement of philosophy advocating “disruption” as a “tool for change” and “agent of growth.” (Scroll your mouse over the little buttons in the upper-right margin.) The firm advocates “overturning assumptions and prejudices that get in the way of imagining new possibilities and visionary ideas that help create a larger share of the future.”

Translation: The company advocates overturning borders that get in the way of imagining new maps of North America that help Mexico create a larger share of the continent.

Well, I’m not as worked up over this as Michelle is, even though I tend to agree that this ad was not only a bad move by Absolut, but also gave some undeserved credibility to the Reconquista movement. I mean, if a globally-recognized company sees enough merit in Reconquista to base an ad campaign on it, there must be something to it, right?

Oh well. If I was a drinking man (and I used to be; screwdrivers were my favorite), I’d stop buying Absolut for awhile just to express my displeasure with the ad and the company’s lackluster response to the criticism. Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, Delta Airlines had a pretty good idea; they were going to produce a bunch of humorous videos depicting these types of bad behavior and then show them during the flight hoping to educate the masses on how not to act. However, as good an idea as this is, the execution of this idea has completely rendered the idea inert. In fact, some of the resulting videos actually appear to encourage the bad behavior they are attempting to discourage. Take the following video as an example:

The video, called Miracle on 34th Row, is supposed to discourage the practice of passengers booking both the isle and windows seats and hoping no one will take the middle seat. However, in this video it appears that the couple’s evil pan works and the light of the heavens shines down upon them as a reward. How is that supposed to discourage anyone? Well, this is Delta’s answer:

Instead, says airline spokesman Andy McDill, Delta chose to take the subliminal route. The videos don’t come right out and say “you’re behaving badly,” he said. “Instead we chose to take a humorous approach, showing scenarios and letting people decide for themselves.”

Unfortunately the subliminal approach is not the route you should take when dealing with oblivious people. These people need more of a brick-in-the-face approach. Let’s compare approaches on the following video:

Now, in my version of the video, the second time the kid kicks the back of my seat, causing me to spill my drink all over myself, I stand up, turn around, and state in a very loud and authoritative voice, “EXCUSE ME LADY, BUT WOULD YOU PLEASE CONTROL THE BANSHEE IN THE SEAT NEXT TO YOU? OTHERWISE, IF HE KICKS THE BACK OF MY SEAT AGAIN I’LL JUST HAVE TO AMPUTATE HIS LEGS.” Then, when the two kids from the row in front of me start staring at me I would get all flustered and then pretend that I was just about to decapitate them with a single punch. Finally, when the kid who is running down the aisle reaches my row I would kick her feet right out from under her, and then stand up and stare down at her and point as I laughed my ass off. Call me crazy, but I think my video would work better than the one they made.

Finally, if you thought that these videos would be shown to the entire plane before takeoff, you’d be wrong.

And while I assumed Delta would be proudly showing these videos to all passengers as part of the pre-flight “rules and regulations” presentation — and at least drawing plane-wide attention to unacceptable behavior — airline spokesman Andy McDill tells me the videos are just one menu item on Delta airplanes with seat-back on-demand video monitors.

So, not only is Delta betting that the truly oblivious among us will decipher the meaning of these videos and change their ways, they are also betting that these same people will look for and chose to watch these videos of their own volition. Words fail me. One can only assume that the fate of these videos was decided by an unending stream of bureaucratic automatons, whose every thought sought to destroy all of the merit in this endeavor.

This just goes to show that corporate ineptness will kill a good idea every time.