{"id":50569,"date":"2012-08-21T11:12:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T16:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=50569"},"modified":"2017-09-17T15:22:17","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T20:22:17","slug":"policing-masculinity-in-slim-jims-spice-loss-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/08\/21\/policing-masculinity-in-slim-jims-spice-loss-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"Policing Masculinity in Slim Jim&#8217;s &#8220;Spice Loss&#8221; Ads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/08\/swan.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-50571\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/08\/swan-500x229.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"229\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/08\/swan-500x229.jpg 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/08\/swan.jpg 522w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Liz B. let us know about Slim Jim&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slimjim.com\/videos.jsp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spice Loss<\/a> ad campaign, which features a number of commercials about men suffering from the horrible condition of spice loss, also known as emasculation. As Liz explains, &#8220;Apparently you need processed meat to stimulate your &#8216;man gland&#8217;, and give you &#8216;brolectrolytes&#8217; for your &#8216;menergy&#8217;.&#8221; The ads feature themes that are common when marketing to men &#8212; a very circumscribed version of acceptable masculinity and the idea that women, and feminized things, are threats to masculinity.<\/p>\n<p>Things that endanger men&#8217;s lives or just generally sap their will to live, according to the ads:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Shakespeare<\/li>\n<li>Bird-shaped boats<\/li>\n<li>Ironing<\/li>\n<li>Making adjustments to their lifestyles to accommodate family life<\/li>\n<li>Yoga<\/li>\n<li>Salad<\/li>\n<li>Spending time with women.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[vimeo]https:\/\/vimeo.com\/42300742[\/vimeo]<\/p>\n<p>[vimeo]https:\/\/vimeo.com\/151574343[\/vimeo]<\/p>\n<p>[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BmApg3M5LNY[\/youtube]<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s fascinating, really: femininity is depicted as weakness, the sapping of strength, yet masculinity is so fragile that apparently even the slightest brush with the feminine destroys it. This entire ad campaign &#8212; and the discourse about masculinity it draws from &#8212; is just an adult version of the game of cooties, with men fleeing the symbolic pollution of femininity.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em>Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liz B. let us know about Slim Jim&#8217;s Spice Loss ad campaign, which features a number of commercials about men suffering from the horrible condition of spice loss, also known as emasculation. As Liz explains, &#8220;Apparently you need processed meat to stimulate your &#8216;man gland&#8217;, and give you &#8216;brolectrolytes&#8217; for your &#8216;menergy&#8217;.&#8221; The ads feature [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2096,2087],"class_list":["post-50569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-masculinity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50569"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71554,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50569\/revisions\/71554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}