Waaahhh, Or Portraying Any Group That I May Be A Part Of In Any Negative Fashion Will Make Me Cry Like A Little Boy

Here's a column from Ad Age that casts doubt on the advertising practice of showing men in a negative light. The "Man as idiot" gist of many pieces is said to rankle 4 out of 5 men as being inaccurate, and many women as being demeaning to them as well, since they tend to, you know, get involved with guys. (Yet another reason, ladies, that y'all should go Sexy Dyke on us. I'm just trying to help.)

Your usual suspects of Glibertarian Until Aggrieved people (Bill Maher, Laura Schlessigner, Glenn Reynolds and Charles Osgood are mentioned) have criticized what they refer to as "anti-male ads." The writer then goes on to mention how men make up the majority of homeless, imprisoned, suicides and people dying young, and how the naughty, naughty ads are contributing to a devaluation of the role of fathers, leaving us awash in a world of fatherless-ness. The Horror! (Full disclosure: I was raised by a single mom, who rocks.)

Now, far be it from me to defend most ads that use the cheap humor crutch of Idiot Male. (Which would be, well, nearly every ad shown during every sports telecast.) Frankly, if you are going to sell me something, giving me your 25-second attempt at Com Oh Dee has always seemed like a waste of everyone's time and money.

But... since when did we, and I'm talking to the mostly male readers of this here blog, give a crap about the media's portrayal of us? Going all squishy about how you are portrayed isn't, well, really a terribly masculine value, in my experience. (For good or ill.)

Secondly, can we all, as a species, go back to the good old days when we were, you know, just in the slightest bit responsible for our own damn lives? I'm all for leveling the playing field for obvious inefficiencies -- class, race, gender. But when we have to also protect idiocy by coddling people who can't get along in the world without living in a cocoon of false positives? Sorry, we don't all get to grow up as trustafarians or legacy babies. (Thank the heavens. A nation of Bushes would have any sentient being with taste praying for meteors.)

Oh, and while we're fixing the media's inaccurate portrayals, can we get anyone on the television that opposed the Iraq War from the beginning? Or thinks that ESPN is on a mission to destroy everything that was ever good about it?