Media Portrayals Of Men

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People picket everything. If someone kills a rat in a movie, members of PETA will be outside ready to bark. If a TV ad depicts a woman as helpless, feminists worldwide will gather and boycott the product the ad is endorsing. If any visible minority is stereotyped, you know that the relevant community will take issue. And don't even get me started on what happens if you crack a gay joke — but all this raises a question: Who defends heterosexual men when they are depicted as hormonal rejects?

Burping, farting, ignorant, and virtually useless; that's how the average man is depicted nowadays. Why? Well, that's easy: Because these men won't raise Cain about it. Advertisers put their money on the men because they're pretty sure that a lawsuit won't follow; we just don't get offended. But should we?

More and more it seems that women are being depicted as the intelligent, all-knowing beings, minorities are being portrayed as the wise and stylish ones, and average Joes are, well, the morons of the operation. What's going on?

feel the sting

Why is it acceptable for guys to be portrayed as though they can't fend for themselves and need a woman to point out how useless they are? After all, stereotypes do stem from somewhere, so maybe most guys are virtually useless in certain aspects of their lives and need women to come in and rescue them. Yeah, right.

Granted, men have been running the corporate world since the dawn of time, but in matters of pop culture, guys are never depicted in the most glamorous fashion. In every TV commercial I see nowadays, men are controlled by either their cars, their hormones, their need for a brewski, their appetites or all of the above. Do we really have no depth to speak of? Oh wait, big breasts, 12 o'clock... I'm kidding.

Everywhere I turn, men are being belittled and no one is saying a word about it. Maybe we should start protesting every time a woman in a movie says that "all men are pigs" or that "men always think with the wrong head..." Those things just aren't true. But instead of tripping out, we just shrug our shoulders and move on. Well, I'm taking a stand, damn it.

As long as men aren't willing to draw up picket signs that say "Men aren't swine!" and walk in circles in front of movie debuts and corporate buildings, mass media will continue to portray us as though we're Neanderthals. To be clear, anyone can make fun of us because there's no harm in doing so.



you're so insensitive

There are commercials that show women fantasizing about their perfect man, when in reality they're boyfriends are fat couch potatoes. But let's say we turned the tables and showed a commercial where there was a fat woman whose boyfriend was imagining that she was perfect? Man, I could just imagine the drama. It would be the hot topic onand you'd have Rosie O'Donnell speaking out about the injustices against big women.

Fat women of the world are angry...