Phillip Bonfiglio
Mr. Eubanks
English 101
09/13/2011
Advertisement’s Image of Men
Advertisements are such a huge part of all media. They are on the television, the computer, radios, newspapers, billboards, magazines, bumper stickers and pretty much everywhere else you look.In Jean Killbourne’s Killing Us Softly 3. She said that “advertising has increased from a $20 billion dollar a year to a $180 billion dollar a year industry.” The primary purpose of the mass media is to sell products. Advertising does sell products of course, but it also sells a lot more than products. It sells: values, images, and concepts, especially about men.There is a massive amount of advertisements that bash men. You’ve seen this poor guy plenty of times on commercials; he’s the retarded, rambling, stupid father, husband or boyfriend who seems to be useless at everything except providing a paycheck. The message: Males are stupid and females have to lead them around. This is becoming a popular trend in advertisements that reflects our culture as Americans. One of the reasons this is happening is because the shift in participants of males furthering their education. A statistic given by (HESA) Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that 1412185 females are attending college and only 1081225 males are. That’s a total of 330960 more females furthering their education. Another reason is that women in households make most consumer purchases, so marketing professionals focus on them. If marketers know women are making most of the purchases they will work to satisfy them in their advertisements. According to Nielsen Media Research Incorporated, women of all ages spend more time than their male counterparts watching TV. So more women are being exposed to these types of stereotypical advertisements and are influenced to buy the product because they feel smarter or that it makes their husband look dumb.
The first advertisement that shows this is by 1st for women an insurance broker company. Its starts off with three guys out in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. One of the guys steps out of the vehicle to urinate on the side of the road. Once he is finished he turns around and starts to walk to the car and when he reaches for the handle, the driver accelerates not allowing the guy to get in. Then He reaches again and the car moves up again and all the guys are laughing thinking it’s all fun and games. It is all fun and games until he reaches again and the driver accelerates rampantly and they run off a cliff. Then a screen pops up that says “Why we insure women only.” This commercial is saying that men are dumb and women are smart so that is why we don’t insure men and insure women only. They make guys look dumb in this commercial by showing them make bad decisions over and over again. The right thing to do as a woman is buy this insurance because the insurance is specialized on helping the smarter of the two genders. They do this so women think they are making the so called smarter choice. This commercial shows what is going on in America, according to TrafficSTATS, a risk analysis study by Carnegie Mellon University for AAA in 2007, men have a 77% higher risk of dying in an accident compared to women. This statistic is based on a risk factor; men have riskier driving habits than females do. Gender absolutely affects your insurance rates.
The next commercial is about a wife and her naive husband. The commercial is called Trip to Vegas. A man is in Las Vegas, probably job related, and he’s gambling for the first time. He starts to like it, and loses money. This commercial is a possible outcome not showing any offence to men, butAT&T’s version is a lot different. The man calls his wife to tell her how much fun he is having and is hyper and sounding almost kid-like.
MAN.The people were so nice, today; I learned how to double down.
WIFE. Wow.
MAN. They even count my room because I’m down to fifty eight hundred.
WIFE. Fifty eight hundred