marketing of masculinity

yeah i mean ultimately "males" are going to want to get together every so often and do dumb shit. there will probably never be a good name for this.

politics?

apparently suits and beards are the new masculinity

new punchline:

ILM?

lulz yeah

not really bothered by kilts, girls are allowed to walk around in skirts so y not
probably wouldn't be friends with a kilter though

just don't wear the suit while walking to work

probably wouldn't be friends with a kilter though

right, exactly

http://www.goodmenbook.org/thebook.php

this thing is getting a lot of play atm and from an interview i heard w/ the filmmaker/compiler of stories it promises not to dovetail with most of the reductive trad bs above even though the trailer makes it seem like yes it will

i mean for a lot of western men a large part of 'what is it to be a man?' is going to be a reaction to the image/'era' these ads are advancing but even within that orbit there's more interesting questions than whether to wear brut or aramis, how to make a proper toast etc

I think at times the "be a MAN" schtick is kind of useful as a stand-in for "be an ADULT," -- something that's kind of useful in an era of prolonged childhood. I mean it's really fucking lame when it gets used as an excuse for retrograde attitudes or GQ-type marketing bullshit - where being a man is equated to being some kind of all around great guy with a perfect smile and a cool haircut.

But still, sometimes I find it helpful to say to myself "Be a man. Stop whining and pick yourself up," etc. even if that has hints of retrograde gender attitudes.

sorry, that was a little redundant

and then u put on yr dockers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p55Hr8nIH_c

REAL MEN LOVE JESUS

i am so completely blown away by this advertisement that i'm sort of speechless. we've got sexism, heterosexism, classism, reproductive futurism...

thank god i don't buy magazines and don't watch television. think i'd shoot myself.

Also Dockers mostly just make me think of soft-bellied midwestern IT guys.

i also think the "be a man" thing can have value, cuz i think of myself as a man, as a male being. it's part of my identity, and not just physiologically. by that i mean it helps constitute my sense of self. and "to be a man", in my mind, is behave and think in a responsible, compassionate, thoughtful and grown-up manner. in other words, as a positive member of the group i see myself as belonging to. in thinking this way, i don't think i'm in any way associating or aligning myself with retrograde/sexist/paternalist attitudes.

further, though i'm not a parent, i think "be a man" attaches itself to that idea-set. to be a man in this sense is to be a fit parent, partner and member of society. and i think that can be a good thing.

ads are still totally revolting

to me these ads are just funny

i mean, i guess offensive in some obvious ways as well, but they're so transparent

i'm not revolted by the sexism & vague homophobia, i'm revolted by the dumb dumb ass

cuz yeah, it's more like mock sexism anyway

but the DUMB DUMB ASS

it's slightly less offensive because it's so obviously aimed at guys that are actually pretty insecure, enough so in fact that they will buy a certain brand of khakis to help themselves feel secure in their manhood I guess

also easier to swallow the stupidity of it because of everyone's general reaction here, if yall had responded to this ad by saying "HELL YEAH I'M SICK OF THIS SALAD EATING QUEERS" then I would have been more put off / bewildered / saddened

thank god i don't buy magazines and don't watch television. think i'd shoot myself.

― And now my dick is where? Oh, this is too rich (the table is the table), Tuesday, December 8, 2009 9:47 PM Bookmark

http://blogs.graphicdesignforum.com/mlenhart/archives/images/pat_on_the_back_1.jpg

That ad makes me want to cut off my own dick.

So anyway, these discos where men were stripped of their khakis sound pretty fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhZyz0z2tHs

i'm all for this sort of thing, really ^^^^^^

http://i45.tinypic.com/s2f7r7.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pNc5ILnrFTI/SQS4_ZJbcnI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/WIuyp4pCPNI/s1600-h/MitchumDeodorant.bmp

http://i45.tinypic.com/34h77fa.jpg

I...what?

You don't order it tall, venti, or mocha, like your old lady does.

haha i love that starbucks seems to be the #1 foil in these ads

the #1 threat to american masculinity... is coffee from seattle

o i see you have a 'tall' coffee there... *derisive snort*

surely ordering a small coffee would make you a small-bladdered commie pinko anyway though

in my america coffee is weak, feminine and european

in my america, when you want to wake up, you shoot someone, and if no ones around, you shoot yourself

btw the best part of the dockers ad is the "shop women" punchline

You don't order it tall, venti, or mocha, like your old lady does a homo.

As if Italian words for coffee aren't masculine.

idk but the point is to feel cool when you buy them

The marketing idea behind Dockers, which made Levi's hundreds of millions of dollars and is probably responsible for the casual-izing of American offices, wasn't about cool or sexy; it was about someone saying "nice pants" and letting your head be full of decisions about stuff more important than clothes. Long article from '97 on how they did it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-anwu6EOjw

Dockers commercial at 1:00.

From Gladwell's article linked above:

The one ad in the "Nice Pants" campaign which isn't like the Bugle Boy spots is called "Motorcycle." In it a nice young man happens upon a gleaming Harley on a dark back street of what looks like downtown Manhattan. He strokes the seat and then, unable to contain himself, climbs aboard the bike and bounces up and down, showing off his Dockers (the "product shot") but accidentally breaking a mirror on the handlebar. He looks up. The Harley's owner-a huge, leather-clad biker-is looking down at him. The biker glowers, looking him up and down, and says, "Nice pants." Last shot: the biker rides away, leaving the guy standing on the sidewalk in just his underwear.

What's surprising about this ad is that, unlike "Vive la France" and "Subway Love," it does seem to cross the boundaries of acceptable sex talk. The rules of guy advertising so carefully observed in those spots-the fact that the hero has to be naïve, that he can't be too good-looking, that he can't get the girl, and that he can't be told anything stronger than "Nice pants"-are all, in some sense, reactions to the male fear of appearing too concerned with fashion, of being too pretty, of not being masculine. But what is "Motorcycle"? It's an ad about a sweet-looking guy down in the Village somewhere who loses his pants to a butch-looking biker in leather. "I got so much feedback at the time of 'Well, God, that's kind of gay, don't you think?' " Robert Hanson said. "People were saying, 'This buff guy comes along and he rides off with the guy's pants. I mean, what the hell were they doing?' It came from so many different people within the industry. It came from some of our most conservative retailers. But do you know what? If you put these three spots up-'Vive la France,' 'Subway Love,' and 'Motorcycle'-which one do you think men will talk about ad nauseam? 'Motorcycle.' It's No. 1. It's because he's really cool. He's in a really cool environment, and it's every guy's fantasy to have a really cool, tricked-out fancy motorcycle."

Hanson paused, as if he recognized that what he was saying was quite sensitive. He didn't want to say that men failed to pick up the gay implications of the ad because they're stupid, because they aren't stupid. And he didn't want to sound condescending, because Dockers didn't build a six-hundred-million-dollar business in five years by sounding condescending. All he was trying to do was point out the fundamental exegetical error in calling this a gay ad, because the only way for a Dockers man to be offended by "Motorcycle" would be if he thought about it with a little imagination, if he picked up on some fairly subtle cues, if he integrated an awful lot of detail. In other words, a Dockers man could only be offended if he did precisely what, according to Meyers-Levy, men don't do. It's not a gay ad because it's a guy ad. "The fact is," Hanson said, "that most men's interpretation of that spot is: You know what? Those pants must be really cool, because they prevented him from getting the shit kicked out of him."

Maybe they could have conveyed how desirable these jeans are by having the ad end with him getting the shit kicked out of him, but managing to keep his clothes on

we're not looking at this from the biker's perspective, imo.

You don't order it tall, venti, or mocha, like your old lady does a homo.

In this Meat Eating Manly Man worldview, ladies and homos are essentially the same thing.

wow a lot has changed in male-aimed advertising since that gladwell article!

What David Altschiller, at Hill, Holliday/Altschiller, in Manhattan, liked about the spots, for example, was that the hero was naïve: in neither case did he know that he had on nice pants until a gorgeous woman told him so. Naïveté, Altschiller stressed, is critical. Several years ago, he did a spot for Claiborne for Men cologne in which a great-looking guy in a bar, wearing a gorgeous suit, was obsessing neurotically about a beautiful woman at the other end of the room: "I see this woman. She's perfect. She's looking at me. She's smiling. But wait. Is she smiling at me? Or laughing at me? . . . Or looking at someone else?" You'd never do this in an ad for women's cologne. Can you imagine? "I see this guy. He's perfect. Ohmigod. Is he looking at me?" In women's advertising, self-confidence is sexy. But if a man is self-confident-if he knows he is attractive and is beautifully dressed- then he's not a man anymore. He's a fop. He's effeminate. The cologne guy had to be neurotic or the ad wouldn't work. "Men are still abashed about acknowledging that clothing is important," Altschiller said. "Fashion can't be important to me as a man. Even when, in the first commercial, the waiter says 'Nice pants,' it doesn't compute to the guy wearing the nice pants. He's thinking, What do you mean, 'Nice pants'?"

It's Time to Wear the Relaxed Fit Pants

xp take into account that if a guy is dressed magnificently and acts like he knows it, that's not necessarily a hugely attractive trait?

i mean more--compare what hes saying to the ketel one ad up top

I think the Ketel One ad still plays into male insecurities--you're not a man today (whether it's your fault or the world's) but last night...