Carolyn Steel answer this question with a long range view (and lots of fascinating information), and points out the problems in our supply chain, in this TED video:
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
I hate you, Zach A., for making me play the Klondike Bar Mancave video game.
Are you bored of companies targeting their products at men with tired and insulting stereotypes? Well, too bad. Because ya’ll keep sendin’ them to us and it’s our job to show them to you.
In this installment of “men-are-idiots,-let’s-try-to-sell-them-shit-p.s.-women-are-annoying”: the Klondike Bar.
First, the Klondike Bar “Mancave” home page:
Notice the Mardi Gras beads? Nice touch.
Also, is that splooge in the corners?
If you click on the video game, you get to the entry page. It is for “Big Boys” only:
Poor Pete. He lives in the (domesticated and feminized) suburbs and wears khakis. Accordingly, he has become a woman:
Gah. Being a family is so crappy. It involves hiding in the basement while your wife takes care of “her” kids, until she cock blocks your cock rocking of course:
Not being able to watch violence and sex makes Pete’s testicles shrivel up:
And when he pops in his secret porn DVD (featuring college age women, of course), your wife just nags and nags:
YOU LOSE:
So, tell me why this guy is so appealing to so many men? The man is selfish: his wife and the babysitter are desperately trying to get the kids to bed and he retreats from the chaos; it’s annoying that the TV is set up so as to make sure his kids don’t watch violence and sex; he hides a stash of porn featuring college age women from his wife. But at least doesn’t have to do housework! Amirite!? Oh yeah, and women are annoying! Go dudes!
It’s pathetic, really. Sociologically, I mean.
Finally, in case you thought Klondike was equal opportunity, here is the screen shot of the generic (non-Mancave) website. It leads you straight there:
“Dude,” now it’s “thicker.”
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
In the vintage ad below, Sanka sells coffee by joking about how Mexicans (I think) lack good ol’ American capitalist values (text below):
Text:
“How a kind word ruin by beezness”
1. Everyone takes the siesta in the heat of the day, except I, poor Juan. While all are asleep, the shops are closed. Except my shop, where I sell pottery to the American tourists for ten times what it costs in America.
2. An American senorita comes one afternoon to buy the pottery. “How is it that you do not take the siesta?” she asked, speaking that strange language which I have heard called Highschool Spanish. “Ah, senorita,” I sighed, “I cannot sleep!”
3. “Is it the coffee!” I explained. “I love the coffee. I cannot resist it. But when I drink it with the lunch, then all afternoon I am wide awake!” She nodded. “It is good business to be open when other shops are closed!”
4. “I would give all the beezness for a good siesta!” I cried. “Then you should drink Sanka Coffee,” she said. “It’s 97% caffein-free [sic], and can’t keep you awake!” “It is an American trick!” I scoffed. “How can it be good coffee?”
5. “It’s wonderful! A blend of fine Central and South American coffees!” she replied. “And the Council on Foods of the American Medical Association says: ‘Sanka Coffee is free from caffein [sic] effect, and can be used when other coffee has been forbidden!’ ”
6. So in gratitude I charge her only five times what the pottery is worth. Later, I try Sanka Coffee. Delicious. And I sleep each day during the afternoon. My pottery beezness, he is ruin but ah, amigo… how I enjoy the siesta!
See also our post on the Frito Bandito and a vintage Tequila ad.
Found at Vintage Ads.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Ilari Sani sent in this vintage ad encouraging Americans to eat vegetables and “Toughen Up.” Today salad is definitely considered “girl food,” and there are plenty of vintage examples in which meat was connected with strength and toughness (and, more generally, masculinity; see below). This ad tries to contest that idea. I wonder if the effort was successful in its day, or if it fell flat alongside the meat = real food narrative.
For vintage examples of meat being connected to masculinity, see here and here. For contemporary examples, see here and here.
Found at Vintage Ads.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Here’s a vintage ad for Swift canned meat products for babies:
(Found here.)
Are parents still encouraged to have “husky” babies? I have a feeling our changing ideas about body size and health have affected how we view babies as well (and I’ve heard of a couple of recent cases where insurance companies turned down infants for being too fat).
We’ve long seen meat associated with strength, particularly when it comes to men. And while the connection between meat and healthy growth is interesting–for instance, think of what we mean when we say someone is a “vegetable,” compared to the message here–what grabbed my attention was a line from the next-to-last paragraph of the ad text:
Baby’s choice of delicious beef, lamb, pork, veal, liver, heart.
It’s a great example of the social construction of what kinds of foods are appropriate and tasty. I highly suspect if Gerber’s put out a line of liver or heart baby food, it wouldn’t sell particularly well. I searched Gerber’s website and couldn’t find anything of the sort available (though they do still have veal with veal gravy). Most Americans simply don’t think of liver and heart as desirable foods any more, and would probably consider canned minced beef heart a more appropriate food for dogs than babies.
Of course, if you call liver paté or foie gras and make is sufficiently expensive, then it can become desirable again.
We’ve collected many images of the gendering and sexualization of food, where foods are turned into sexy female bodies or are shown alongside sexy women. Miriam sent us a link to Brick House Tavern & Tap, which markets itself as a Hooters-lite for-the-guys restaurant. The menu includes some sexualized elements, and is based on a clear gendering of items. Clearly it’s objectifying women (check out the website), but what interests me is the message we get about masculinity.
There are salads for men and women; the male version includes two types of meat and boiled egg:
Men are supposed to control things; foods are described as dominant or submissive. I presume the “man-cave” dish would fall into the dominant category:
Men’s foods are unhealthy. Steamed, rather than fried, options? Those are for the ladies:
Real manliness is associated with guns:
UPDATE: Reader Lisa says,
I thought the “gun show” reference was to biceps – e.g. men have muscles and women don’t. (e.g. Do you have your tickets to the gun show? har har har)
That makes total sense. I’ve had the good luck to never have heard that particular joke until now.
There’s also a class element:
And desserts are “the happy ending,” with “double d” cupcakes and “sweet, innocent” (girl)-next-door apple crumble:
It’s a common theme (see Lisa’s post on frozen dinners): real men need big meals with lots of meat. They don’t worry about health–they want you to deep-fry everything, dammit! Trying to eat a healthy, low-fat diet is for women. And foods are depicted as parts of women’s bodies (“double d”) or associated with sex (“the happy ending”).
See also Campbell’s ad saying beef soup is for men only.
Lindsay H. sent in a Kingsford Charcoal ad, in which we learn the proper cooking roles for men and women–men cook outside, women cook inside:
It’s just like how men are supposed to do their cleaning outside by mowing the lawn! Glad we cleared all that up, and also instructed women how to avoid embarrassing their male partners in front of their guy friends.
Wonderful Pistachios has a new video featuring Levi Johnston, the guy famous only for nearly becoming Sarah Palin’s son-in-law when he and Bristol got pregnant. Here’s the video:
Hah! Because teen pregnancy and stuff = hilarious! If you’re the dad, anyway. I’m trying to imagine this video being made with a teen mom instead. Also, the silent Black man as an accessory to the White star is a great touch.
This just seems to be in terribly bad taste to me. Also, it’s an awfully long way to go to get to make a “do it” joke, and I’m not sure most people would get that the “protection” is the pistachio shell. I had to watch it about 3 times before I figured it out.
UPDATE: Apparently I didn’t actually figure it out. Reader DC says,
I think the “protection” they’re talking about is the black guy that’s supposed to be a bodyguard of some kind. The “does it” part is about cracking open the shell.
Duh. That makes sense. I mean, it makes sense that’s the “protection” they’re talking about. The video is still dumb.
And Ella says,
The guy is his real life body guard “Tank”. This may sound entirely unnecessary, but out of perverse curiosity I read the GQ feature about Mr. Johnston and the story is actually quite sad. It does delve into why he has Tank in his life.
The company really likes to say “do it,” apparently, as they do on this page letting you know there’s an app for your iPhone. An app where you crack pistachios.
