Desperate Housewives

This week I watched the latest Desperate Houswives episode “ In a World where Kings are Employers”. During this episode two relationships are portrayed as female dominate. The first relationship is between Bree and Orson. Bree owns her own cookbook and catering business. Her husband, Orson, had recently gotten out of jail and was unable to find any jobs that would accept him. Bree let him work with her as a business partner. In this episode, Orson found out that Bree’s son makes more than he does. He becomes extremely jealous and mad that his wife would do that to him. He has to sneak around behind her back to find out that her son actually makes twice as much as Orson does. When he confronts her about the situation, Bree tells him that he is just “worth less”. Bree dominates every part of their marriage. Instead of working together, Bree bosses Orson around all day. The idea places a bad conception on females.

The second relationship that is female dominated is the marriage of Carlos and Gaby. Carlos has just recently gotten his sight back, and Gaby forces him to work long hours for a high paying job instead of the charity work he wants to do. In this episode, Carlos’s new boss Brad and his wife take the couple out to dinner. Brad tells Gaby and Carlos the bad news that the company is foregoing all bonuses this year. Gaby gets very upset and tells Brad that she needs the money for her new bracelet. Even though Carlos was the one to work the hard hours and who should deserve the bonus, Gaby feels like she is the one who is being let down. Later on Gaby went to tell her jeweler that she couldn’t afford the bracelet when she saw Brad kissing another girl besides his wife. She threatens him, and he bribes her $30,000 not to tell anyone. Gaby selfishly took the money and bought her bracelet. At the end of the episode, Brad and his wife come over and tell Gaby that they are pregnant. Gaby started to feel guilty about taking the money and not telling Brad’s wife about the secret. She eventually told Carlos about the incident, but she told him not to tell anyone. Gaby is the type of person who will do anything for money. Her character also displays a bad image of what femininity is. Not all women live to be pleased by others.

I have been a big fan of The Office for several years now and although I did realize that many of the shows embodied many different stereotypes, I had never really noticed how many of the episodes were sending messages about gender. This week I watched the episode called “Women’s Appreciation Day” and as you can probably already tell from the title, the show was full messages on feminism. The show started out with Phyllis telling everyone that she had just been flashed in the parking lot. When Michael heard, he just laughed and made fun of it. He even asked why the flasher did not choose to do it to Pam or Karen (the younger women in the office) instead. The attitude Michael showed towards the incident displays the common view of society that women are sex symbols. The act was demeaning for Phyllis and the guys did not care how it had affected her. They saw it as a humorous situation. Dwight however, perceived the event in a whole different manner. He sent out a memo to all of the women that said they would be sent home if they broke any of the following rules: no makeup or heals over 1inch allowed, sleeves must be down to wrist, shirts must be buttoned up to the collar and must be muted colors, and no woman is allowed to talk to strangers without written authorization by Dwight himself. The memo symbolized Dwight’s belief that men are superior to women. He thought it was okay to deny women their rights to do what they please, and that they must have his permission to do anything. Later Michael called an emergency women’s appreciation meeting. He started it off by telling everyone that movies and magazines portray women as skinny and tall goddesses. He then asked if this was true and followed it up with the response “NO... look around!” The idea that women are judged by their appearances is brought up. Michael did not mention anything about how men are also portrayed in the media in the same sense. He only wanted to point out that the women of the office are not perfect, and his way of saying it was very negative towards women. Karen then told him that he was being misogynist and he took it as a complement. In the final scene of the episode, Michael was doing a personal interview and say that “any man who says they understand women is a lie because they are un-understandable”. He also finishes up with the question explaining how to be apprecative towards women. His response was because they can try to be “illogical, flighty, unpredictable, and emotion; and then maybe they will have learned something from women after all”.

Dial Soap for Men

On TV the other day I saw a commercial that I could not help but notice the loud masculinity stereotypes. It is the commercial for Men’s Dial Body Soap. The commercial opens up with men playing tubas and singing that they are “manly manly men”. What does that mean exactly and why do they classify themselves as that? This question is never answered in the commercial. Next a man walks into the spotlight describing the Body Soap while cars are crashing all around him. He is wearing a nice suit and tie, but he has a racecar helmet on his head. Dirt is flying up all around him. The guys playing the tubas flash again on the screen and this time they are yelling “Destroy, Defeat, Defend!” The phrase has doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the soap, unless they were referring to defending against germs. The reason they used those specific words was to stress the fact that they are “manly men”. They are trying to emphasize the idea the real men destroy things, as well as defeat and defend. The next line that the main man says is “Man up your man suit with full body odor protection that smells real nice”. What is the definition of the phrase “man up”? What are they trying to apply that a man should be? The final screen shows the words “Protection from Manstink”. There is no question that this commercial and product is geared towards males.

Brookstone Commercial

On Sunday when I was watching the Superbowl, I noticed that there was a trend in the car commercials: they were all geared towards men! In today’s society women buy and own cars just as much as men do. I thought it was odd that no car related commercials were even slightly promoted females buying their product.
One Toyota commercial showed a man looking at the new Venza. The screen was flashing back and forth between the car and what looked to be a metal suit of armor like a super hero would wear. The man was looking at the face mask and then a couple seconds later at the front of the car. No objects in the commercial hinted at feminism. Everything was masculine.
A Toyota Tundra commercial was of a truck driving up a metal platform with fire surrounding it. The colors in the commercial were all dark and gray. Again feminine objects were nowhere to be found.
The third commercial I noticed was actually for Bridgestone Tire Company. It was a humorous commercial of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head driving a sport car on a windy road. Mrs. Potato Head is doing nothing but whining and complaining the entire time. Finally Mr. Potato Head had to stop suddenly because a group of sheep were blocking the road. Mrs. Potato Head’s mouth went flying off down the mountain. Mr. Potato Head just looks at her, smiles, and drives away, all while Mrs. Potato Head is putting on her angry eyes. Although both females and males find this commercial funny, it is geared towards men because they can relate. At the end of the commercial, the narrator says “For drivers who want to get the most out of their cars”.

The link for this commerical is http://www.hulu.com/watch/55725/super-bowl-xliii-ads-bridgestone-taters?c=0