Top 10: Worst Male-Bashing Ads

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You’ve seen him plenty of times on sitcoms; he’s the dumb, bumbling, idiot dad, husband and boyfriend who appears useless at everything but bringing home a paycheck. The message: Guys are dumb and women have to lead them around. This, of course, cues the laugh track. Yet a survey from an organization called Children Now found that two-thirds of kid respondents described men on TV as angry, while respondents from another group’s survey said men were portrayed as corrupt on TV by a 17 to 1 margin. Clearly, this is no laughing matter.

To highlight companies pushing anti-guy messages, we’ve compiled a list of the worst male-bashing ads from 2007 and 2008. Whether husbands are portrayed as useless, stereotypical men or absolute airheads, our list of worst male-bashing ads exposes them all.

Check out which worst male-bashing ads are the main offenders.



Number 10

Pizza Hut

Number 9

Magasin

Need to cook a meal? Better call for pizza because you surely can’t do it on your own. In this worst male-bashing ad, Pizza Hut rolls out the tired stereotype that men are completely useless in the kitchen. Take a look at the real world, however, and you’ll see a much different picture than the one painted in this worst male-bashing ad: Men still dominate professional kitchens as chefs. You can take your pick from the tons of male celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver. Of course you use the microwave, but you can also boil an egg, grill a great steak and even prepare vegetables. You may have grown up on your mother's cooking, but now that you are grown up you can be the master of your kitchen — even if advertising insists you can’t.Apparently, men are pushovers and women are the superior voice in relationships. It’s unclear what product or service this No. 9 worst male-bashing ad is pitching, but its cliched message comes in loud and clear. You’ve seen this script play out on sitcoms likeandall the time. The formula in this worst male-bashing ad is simple: Man + Outside World = Dumb. Clearly, whomever came up with the concept wasn’t doing much heavy lifting for an idea; they simply repackaged the “dumb man” character as a more literal representation — a caveman. Warning: blood may boil after repeated viewings.

Number 8

AT&T

A guy is in Las Vegas , probably for a convention, and he’s never gambled before. He gets a taste for it, and loses money at the tables. Sounds like it could happen, right? Now here’s the AT&T version: same setup, but the guy calls his wife to report how much fun he’s having and explains in the naive tone of a kid going to school for the first time that he lost “chips” he wasn’t aware were worth money. Believable? Sure, as a science-fiction plot in which men are house pets. In the real world, even the crazy guy who bets his life savings has brains enough to know he’s not playing Monopoly.

These worst male-bashing ads will get you riled up…