Activists Protest TV Ad Mocking Father

NEW YORK -- A TV ad showing a computer-illiterate father getting chided for trying to help his Internet-savvy daughter with her homework has roused the anger of fatherhood activists, who are calling on Verizon to take it off the air.

"Leave her alone," says the wife/mother in the Verizon DSL ad, ordering her befuddled husband to go wash the dog as the daughter, doing research on the computer, conveys a look of exasperation with her father.

"It's really outrageous," said Joe Kelly, executive director of the national advocacy group Dads and Daughters.

"It's reflective of some deeply entrenched cultural attitudes -- that fathers are second-class parents, that they're not really necessary," Kelly said. "To operate from the assumption that dad is a dolt is harmful to fathers, harmful to children, and harmful to mothers."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-fathers-protest,0,1002030.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

Verizon isn't any more demeaning to men/fathers than are commercials that poke fun at guys for not being able to cook or do laundry.

I also despise media that implies that women should all be microsopically thin (with the aid of bulemia and heroin), men should all be chiseled from granite (with the help of steroids), and that little girls should aspire to be little whores, and little boys should grow up to be brutal and violent.

When the day of reckoning comes, Jesus is going to start with Madison Avenue -- they've got a lot of answering to do.

Hapless dads, supermoms, and snarky, know-it-all kids. When it comes to floor mopping, the only guy you ever see in the room is Mr. Fucking Clean!!! No men in TV Land can cook, but they can microwave--TV dinners, soups, instant pastas--for this, they are helpless heroes for all of thirty seconds. Kids microwave too, because no one is home, and they suck up that crap that is loaded with high fructose corn syrup...of course, the model children in the ads do not actually eat this crap, they'd weigh 200 pounds if they did.

Toilets--women's work--no MAN in TV land is allowed to clean them!

Kids are clever, putting shit over on their stupid lobotomized parents--give me five minutes with the little bastards, they'd have their rooms cleaned, the living room vacuumed, the dog fed and walked, and their homework done. After dinner, they would do the dishes. (Dinner? What's that?!!!!). Of course, all of these TV parents have no idea how to control these creatures that live in their houses...it's like they had lobotomies when the kids started to walk.

Give me a commercial that is DIFFERENT. A stay-at-home Dad who cleans toilets, kids who HELP around the house (what is wrong with an ad of a KID urging a parent to buy a particular product because he or she likes it better to do his or her chores--Windex, trash bags, dishwashing liquid...!!!).

Ads that advertise a product without insulting someone to do it would be so damn refreshing. I swear, the concept appears impossible to advertisers.

One of the things I've noticed since getting a TiVo and skipping past them for the past year. We're all so immune, otherwise, to commercials that we've no idea how horrendous they are, until you go a good spell without seeing any.

I'm not "stay-at-home," but these days, who the hell is? Your commerical mimics my life to a frightening degree. Try this one:

Several products I would buy, all in the same comercial:

Man comes in with his daughter. It's already dark outside. They move to kitchen, and cook two TV dinners at the same time.

"Sorry about dinner, hon, but I worked a 12 hour shift today, and I just don't feel like anything fancy."

"That's okay, dad. DU-brand frozen peas are great anyway!"

Microwave: DING!

"Okay, take your plate and you can eat and watch the Simpsons and then I'll help with you with your homework."

Kid knocks one tv dinner onto floor. "That's okay, hon, take mine and get your homework started. I'll take care of this." "Thanks, daddy!"

Man stares at mess on floor, walks to pantry, passes mop, opens refrigerator, opens bottle of light beer. Takes long drink. "Ah, hell" he says, sets beer on counter, proceeds to clean mess up using amazing new cleaning product.

I have a 13 year old that helps out around the house, willingly and cheerfully. She still thinks her father and I know everything... Her 21 year old sister calls me daily because "I know more than she does". My husband cooks 60% of the time, shops for food 90% of the time, hangs out with his daughter a lot, and is more computer savvy than she is. We do exist!

yep, sounds like the good guy I married. These people in commercials might as well be Martians. Stupid, docile, Martians.

the actors--and even characters--are just playing out a role about as believable as a Chick tract.

I'm with ya-it's all part of "the plan" to turn everyone into self-serving idiots.

Why don't we have a Liberal media fighting this one? We can say anything we want on the airways and be as rude as we wanna be, thanks to the changing times.

when it suited them to be.

What's next? Boycott The Simpsons because Homer is a bad father?

compelled me to complain to the company.
It advertises a truck; a model is standing in the desert next to the truck and says that for the price of a few latte's you can have a tuck like that - won't you help? with tear falling down her face.

It is a take-off on the Christian Children's Fund where the man is standing is a shanty town with children asking for donations - the price of some lattes per day.

Whether or not a person agrees that the fund is a good one, the hijacking of children's poverty for the purpose of selling stupid trucks made me sick. Corporate values I guess.

i think mocking those christian save the children ads is funny. those programs are 90 percent bullshit and the money goes to fund some rightwing tassel-loafered schmuck sitting at a mahogany desk.

rcm

There's the ad you mentioned, and there's also a charming bit about "adrenelin deficit syndrome" that can only be cured via raping the environment by off-roading in a 4x4.

disgusting.

Let's see more commercials where men are really dealing with their kids--like actually changing diapers, feeding them, and doing their laundry. One little semi-offensive commercial is nothing. Women are insulted 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If men don't want to be seen as inept with their children, maybe they should start chipping in.

you'll get hundreds of repsonse here from those of us with husbands who cook, shop, interact with the kids, and don't sit on their ass watching tv everynight. Your stereotype of men is just as prevalent in the ads.. isn't it?

thank you

I barely remember seeing my dad when I was growing up, he worked two jobs and went to school. He slept a lot on the weekends. Not surprisingly, he now regrets the hell out of not being around back then.

Yeah, I DID THE freakin' CALCULUS homework with my honor roll daughter because I was the only one who didn't have "math paralysis." By the way, I have an MBA in finance plus a law degree plus an M.Div. And I'm the one who did the projects, built the replica of the Greek city out of toothpicks, etc.

And I've changed a shitload (literally) of diapers.

So go fuck yourself. And come talk to me when you can discuss differential equations.

Bake

And I've had my share of baby shit under my fingernails, and gotten the piss fountain in my face from my son (been a few years, I will admit, but then I'm 49 now).

Thanks for lumping us all together. That was really idiotic, and you owe a lot of us a very large apology.

Bake

You know, the one where the father is a blithering idiot, and is always saying, "D'oh!" I forget what it's called.

A current trend in advertising is to make men look stupid. Take notice.

the men bashing commercials to people for years. I thought I was the only one that was sick of it. If you watch TV you will see it every day.

no one would even raise an eyebrow if it implied women of that generation were computer illiterate. I think it is sexist to imply that all men are computer geniuses or technology wizzes.
I think this is one of the mildest commercials I've seen, and quite humorous.

That has the wife ruling over the parental block on the cable--not even allowing the husband the choice of watching what he want to watch. He has to ask his wife's permission--through their daughter--to watch a blocked channel. The answer comes back (repeated by the daughter with a smug look on her face) and the answer is "NO!" The husband doesn't even get the chance to talk to his wife about it. He just gets TOLD what he can see and what he can't. And his daughter treats the whole thing as some sort of victory over her dad. The last shot we get is of the father shrugging and looking puzzled, stupid, and ineffectual.

In earlier posts it seems that some posters have confused the idea of men sticking up for their own images to be only coming from the Right.

WRONG.

Some of us on the Left think it's something to be concerned about, just as it would be if it was ads pushing negative female stereotypes.

It's wrong to play up any racial/sexual stereotype--especially in the name of advertising. It's just as wrong to show men as bumbling asses as it would be to do the same to women.

Why this is used so often, I can only guess it has something to do with parents' wishes for intelligent and savvy children.

JB

no, it has more to do with splitting off the kids so they can market to them directly. sort of like lions hunting a here of antelope.

It's a pet peeve of mine (and I'm female). They try to make it look as if men are lost in the kitchen, useless with kids, and completely worthless. NOT ALL MEN drink beer, watch sports, and ignore the family.. as the commercials would have you believe. And NOT all women are size 6, 15 years younger than their husbands, and look like a supermodel. But that is how married couples are portrayed in advertising...

And doncha notice that the women who are fifteen years younger (at least, this is signified in the commercials by three 'cute' crow's feet on an otherwise blemish-free plastic face) ALL HAVE HUSBANDS with WEAK WILLIES!!!! They are either on Cialis, or Viagra or Levitra! Oh, and none of them weigh more than 109 pounds!

I must say, I do enjoy studying closely the expressions on the women's faces in those 'Prescribed Penis Engorgement' ads. Pay close attention, you will find amusement in these as well--I swear, the actresses are telegraphing reality-based emotions that the male-dominated boards of directors of these pharmaceutical companies completely miss. The women either look resigned, stunned, horrified, seething, or depressed.

You might believe these ads if the woman grabbed the guy and threw him down and got busy...but instead, it is always some obviously older guy slyly sidling up from behind, while the poor woman is washing dishes or something, and this look of pure DREAD crosses her face as she realizes old Floppy has a boner, and that means the goddamn vacuuming will have to wait. Then there's the one where the couple sit, in separate bathtubs, on the side of a cliff. SEPARATE BATHTUBS? There's a clue--stay out of my bathwater! Enough! The woman looks like, if you foul my water, I will NOT be happy!

I've often wondered if there is an agenda in these ads, as though they are, in actual fact, telling these guys, yeah, we know your wife is only hanging in there because of the kids and no longer wants to bone you, you overweight, lazy, flaccid, unclean slob, but with this little pill, you can assert YOUR AUTHORITY, and resume making her life miserable, and take away the one bright spot (your floppy dink) that she had in her miserable life.

Maybe it is just me, but none of these women look even remotely DELIGHTED. And that is the reaction one should be going for. Even that woman who gives a little "testimonial" for one of the boner drugs sounds like she is putting up with her Dicky Husband just so she can compare notes with, and one-up, her girlfriends...it's like a competition, but you never get the sense that she actually is enthused that he can do the deed. Instead, she is pleased because her horse performs better than those of her friends...

Ads are totally WHACKED OUT these days. They can, though, be a great jumping off point for discussions with the younger generation. You'd be surprised how ready the kids are to accept the crap that comes across the tube. Once you clue them in to the bullshit, though, they get an equal or greater charge out of picking all the nonsense apart.

Dumb-ass Dad watching TV with a beer. Mom knows everything, orders Dad around, makes fun of him.

Pretty typical.

A voice of reason! Thank you, from one of the good dads.

Bake

So that we stop relying on our own judgement and come to view each other -- and our own selves -- solely in their terms. They want to weaken all social bonds so that we will have no defenses against their propaganda and no way to define and assert our common interest.


(edit: corrected preposition :dunce:)

male or female, they grow up with technology.

we got a computer science class at my school when I was 14 (83?), but our teacher got fired for exposing himself on highway 60, the main drag through town, so for the rest of the year we just had study hall because there was no one else to teach the class. This commercial is harmless, and quite realistic.

where the father has bought new phones for his daughters and some sort of special plan and they look at him as if his head is on backwards and then the mother says something or other and they rush up to hug her completely ignoring the father. I feel so sorry for the man having such shits in his life.

One of the best ads IMO was the lever 2000 (I think) where the man was playing with his son, getting him his supper and bathing him. A lot of the males I know are very competent around the house.

I want to take the new phones and....

Eh, nevermind!!

Horrible ad, though--HORRIBLE!!!

OK, so I gotta be honest, I got "issues" stemming from a past abusive relationship, and everytime I see one of those "Step on stupid husband's face" ads, it dredges up shit best left at the bottom of the harbour.

I do NOT patronize companies that run shit like that, and I got a phone call once from a VP at HP concerning my complaint about that hateful ad for the digi camera wher the smart woman sent her stupid husband to the store with a picture shopping list. she told me "We're quite taken back by the volume of the negative feedback that ad is getting. It 'played' well in the focus groups..."

Too Bad, HP makes over-priced crap that doesn't work as well as a LexMark, anyway.

That Lexmark printers are made by Compaq, which is now part of the HP family...Maybe you should get an Epson?

Not wealthy enough to be a "socially conscious" shopper.

Amazing, we must have really triggered something. I had a nice long talk with her.

I asked her if she had any thoughts about how that ad would have looked if the roles had been reversed, with "the little woamn" stumbling her way through the store, squinting at the nice, sharp pictures in her hand. She said "Hmmm...You're right, that wouldn't go over well at ALL. *I* would be offended by that..."

I also asked her if they ever considered that the "Focus group" was yanking their chain.

same here. Lucky she didn't think we were going from a script.

She seemed very sincere, and I noticed the ads disappeared soon after.

I told her I'd have accepted the ad had it been part of a running gag, with each member of the family looking foolish in a new ad. Since it wasn't a "campaign" as such, it was unacceptable.

Watching it actually made me feel bad. That certainly doesn't make me want to subscribe to their service. I don't whether they were trying to appeal to women, but I do know that the ad totally backfired in my case.

If you notice, a lot of advertisement seems intended to inculcate meanspiritedness and antisociality. I for one refuse, as often as humanly possible, to do business with corporations that advertise in this way.

Not only for the reasons you stated, but it makes women look bad, also. When I saw it, I couldn't believe a wife/mother would say something so rude and bitchy to the husband/father who was trying to be helpful.

pathetic...Listen up pater.

For christ's sake people. WTF are you doing watching that shite?

Gyre

a lot of what offends and worries conservatives is brought into their homes by television advertising which is a direct result of corporate consumerism. They want to (do) blame libruls, but it is the dark side of capitalism. The question/problem is how to get them to see it.

I tell this to my students (all adults in the deep South) and they all agree, but we need a mechanism to hammer it home again and again b/c I'm sure that my message fades away over time.

The commercials I really hate right now are the "Miller High Life" ones with the deep gruff voice-over chiding men to be more masculine. The most glaring stupid commercial is one where you see a hand changing the oil in the car and the narrator making fun of people who take their cars to a shop to do so.

I despise commercials where advertisers try to tell people that you're only a "man" or "woman" if you do things in a certain way and buy their product(s).

But I have the one that takes the cake. Here in Mass they run a commercial by some public health agency that has young guys (late teens early 20s) one at a time looking befuddled at the camera as if they are trying to find something to say. The commercial is for AIDS and goes on to say "what are you going to say to her when she finds out she has it." (paraphrasing) It is really offensive because it insinuates that men give AIDS to women (I know it happens) nothing about a woman giving it to the male. No "equal time" commercial about women struggling to tell their partners that they had given them AIDS. The commercial makes it seem like a one way street.

it's much harder for women to transmit AIDS to men through sex than vice versa. It isn't impossible, and that needs to be pointed out, it's just much less statistically likely.

But it is not impossible for a woman to give it to a man, I find that commercial much more offensive then some dolt who can't keep his constitutional amendments straight or work the family PC

But for a long time I have found "the excitable stupid man" and the "calm wise woman" -- mind you, on very shallow consumer shit -- idiotic.

But obviously this stupid stereotype appeals to a large demographic which buys a lot of stupid consumer shit. Smart mouthed put down seems to be a way of expressing love in American culture :eyes: (Let it be said I watch little tv -- only Jon Stewart and the good Frontlines, and otherwise monitor it to see what corporations are brainwashing people with these days....Well, I will fess up -- I am one of those darned elitists....)

But that being said, who knows what Joe Kelly's agenda is -- maybe he's sane, and maybe he ain't -- he might be pissed off because women ridiculing the man's breadth of understanding of cheap consumer good is not Biblical....

I have also noticed that RAGE is being used to sell products these days....seems to be successful, to sell everything from drain cleaner to SUVs. Too bad the Dems didn't use it against a lying illegitimate idiotic dolt who led us into an unwinnable quagmire which will only lessen our national security, united the world passionately against us, and is ruining our economy (etc etc) (an aside -- is he poking someone other than Laura? I mean, he told Tucker Carlson that he and his Dad talked about "pussy" in private during one of his campaigns. Were they talking about Laura and Barb's pussies? I mean, do guys have "pussy" talks about wivies, daughters-in-law and moms? Hmmm.... Would his followers care? Would they even feel bugged if he decapitated her on live tv?).

One bit of harpy-fired-up husband-dissing I would LOVE to see on tv is Laura reading the riot act to George over lying about the war, marginalizing science, and, ever reality. But no -- she smiles and say GEORGE has it 100% right, and that we silly children need to get caught up with his divinely inspired insights and ignore those "secularists" with their peer-reviews and exacting standards. It's not NICE to be mean, but I HATE Laura for covering for her criminal husband.

It doesn't have to be this way. Contrast with another example -- the US accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft and killed many people, including children, in 1988. It was primary season, and what did Poppy say -- he took the Texas faux balls stance and said"I don'd care. I NEVER apologize for America!!" It would seem that the guys around the Gipper tried to get him to take a similar "fuck you" stance. But Mrs Reagan sat Ronnie down and straightened him out about morality and ethics and the right thing to do as an American, and personally persuaded him to apologize publically and offer reparations. That was the day I buried the hatchet with Nancy and realized she was one hell of a woman who was very poorly understood by the public -- after making a study of her (believe it or not we have FRIENDS in common, which is SO WEIRD), I know enough to respect her, even if we do not "see eye to eye" on some issues.

I watched my Mom disintegrate under diabetes and Alzheimers, and cared for her so she could remain in her home during her final illness.... Legitimate scientific groups tell us stem cell research is the new frontier of medicine. But Laura got on tv and addressed we silly American "children" that we shouldn't put "our faith" in the consensus of our greatest medical researchers, so we wouldn't be disappointed if their work came to nil.

SAME Xanaxed bitch goes on tv and says post-occupation Iraq is a miracle of democracy and progress, and that at last, lasting peace in the ME is on the double march .... Mind you, no consensus of acknowledged political or area or military experts agree with her- but that doesn't stop her from making these "optimistic" claims.....

Fuck you, Laura, you fucking bitch! You are COMPLICIT in your husband's crimes. Smile all you can, bitch -- we all know you can perfectly enumciate "fuck you!" through your teeth -- you've got a lot of teeth but not enough to hide your lies and crimes. You are as immoral as your war criminal husband, and have EARNED the contempt and ridicule of decent people.

When *she* had a major moral choice -- Mrs Reagan chose justice and decency and petitioned her husband, the President, to act decently and honorably. Laura is either totally fucking clueless (even if only strategically to appeal to their base of imbeciles), or, as I suspect, as amoral as her husand and the crime family she married into....

but coming from the point of veiw of a son who is constantly having to provide tech support for his dad, the premise is well, realistic, and kind of funny. It seems innocent enough to me, I mean, this stuff actually happens, and it happens alot.

My father is a baby boomer and hadn't really gotten into net surfing until I got him hooked on it in the late ninties. I, on the other hand had been using various incarnations the family computer since the mid 1980's. To replace the computer I'd be taking with me when I left for college years later, I built a computer for my parents out of parts I had left over from previous upgrades.

Now, I consider my father to be one of the smartest people I know. This is taking into consideration that there are various kinds of knowledge that one can excel at. Commons sense, mechanical expertise, and artisic ability are some of my fathers areas of expertise. Computer literacy, however, is not one of his strengths.

Now whenever I return to my hometown for some family gathering or another, if their computer isn't preforming at 110% I get to see my father with the kind of helpess look on his face that he gets to see on mine when ever my truck won't start.

I am certain that this scenario plays out in thousands of homes across the country on a daily basis. Would it be too unreasonable to assume that the person who thought of this commercial was a guy who's father couldn't master the double click? Or a father who considered himself a wizard of all things computerized until he had to ask his ten year old son to troubleshoot the home PC?

Art actually does sometimes immitate life. These situations really happen. Why do some people feel it is necissary to take things so seriously, can't it just be funny sometimes?

I have the greatest respect for my father, I owe him so much and I've learned everything worth knowing, from him. I also recognize him as the man he his, all of his strengths, as well as his weaknesses. I am not a father, but looking back at the hell my sister and I sometimes put him through growing up, I know that being a father can't be easy, but is it really so important to get all bent out of shape over a commercial?

Granted there are plenty of comercials that I get bent out of shape over (lately they all seem to start with "I'm George Dubya Bush en I approoved this missege") But seriously, if your going to get pissed off at male stereotypes on television, try the Liftime channel. Just about every show features a guy who's either a cheating husband, an abusive bastard, a serial killer, a rapist, or a Mime (A MIME For GODSAKES!)

(Just kidding, about that last part, I don't really have a problem with mimes, but seriously Lifetime is just damned scary.)

On Edit: and what's with those friggin' Fanta & Old Navy Comercials... ARRGGH!!!

The one I hate is the father getting his daughters new cell phones that will let them all stay in contact with each other...

The girls just sit there like dead fucking hairspray until the mother says they can stay in touch with their friends....

The giggly little morons get all excited, hug their mother and ignore the dad...

If I was that fucking father I'd say see ya and head on out to the outback and let the little darling fend for themselves..

What ungratefull little bitches and what mesage are they sending...

And how about all those ads that promote great mother daughter excursions to the mall to buy the latest fashion of what ever it is these people buy ......

It is not just this ad, nor the "group hug" ad portraying males as idiotic, worthless and beside the point, it is the portrayal of the American male in general.

Funny? perhaps the first time. But the 10th, 20th and 100th time, it becomes Chinese Water Torture.

But on the other hand, we have happy warriors killing Iraqis at a distance with their Humvee guns. Real men smoke cigs and smile while killing from afar.

But that was approximately 8 months ago, pre-TIVO. I'll never watch another commercial ever again.

:puke:

different strokes for different folks, owing to market research. the only motivation is money, folks, always has been, always will be. Considering the vast majority of tv execs are male, maybe it's some form of innate masochism...naw, just buck fever.

will get beat up at school isn't a problem at all! What a bunch of hypocrites.

But if I were a kid today. That rich snot-nosed kid stepping-out of the Hummer, would be target #1 on my list. Gee, especially in Junior High (the commercial hints at) the Kids are brutal both emotionally and physically to both themselves and others. Can we say: When Hormones go wild? LOL

It is still men who hold the vast majority of the elected offices and judicial positions in this country, despite the fact that men comprise only about 48% of the population in this country.

It is still men who (therefore) get to write and interpret the laws of this country as they see fit.

It is still men who comprise the greatest, most dependable block of repub voters in this country.

It is still men who hold the vast majority of executive positions at Fortune 500 companies in this country.

It is still men who make on average about $0.22 more per dollar earned than women for the same work in this country.

It is still men who rape/assault a woman on average every 10 seconds in this country.

It is still men who commit the vast majority of the crimes in this country.

It is still men who on average perform very few of the houselhold and parental duties in this country.

It is still men who see an increase in their standard of living following divorce while the woman and child(ren) see a decrease.

It is still men who paint the picture of other men as incompetent and the picture of women as sex objects there only for the joy of man- since the majority of ad execs are men.


Cry me a fucking river. The ad wasn't targeted at men- it was a generational jab. When men in this country really have something to be upset about (see the rape/assault every 10 seconds noted above), then I'll start to feel a little symapthy over a freaking television commercial.

Are there good (and great) men out there? Of course- I'm even married to one. Does that mean that ANY of the things I listed above pale in comaprison to some inconsequential television ad? Not on your life.

get over yourself ya chump :puke:

I will not surrender my sense of self, self worth, or dignity for anyone.

And neither should you.

is the one where the kid is accepted into his new school because his mother drives him to school in a Hummer.

Couldn't be more unwholesome. Makes you want to track down the person who created the commercial and blast an air horn in his/her ear.

I know this is a total stereotype, but I just see every repuke out there driving SUV's with a dozen or so rug rats, eating fast food at every meal, fat spoiled kids, self serving religious nuts who bend the word of God to fit their definition of how everyone should live, watching CNN, Fox and MSNBC, never reading a book, the newspaper or the internet, sexually pent up closet porn addicts, a cow-towing mother to a dominate self righteous father, complaining that liberal morals are ruining America while they park their kids in front of the TV so they don't have to talk to them. I just had to vent.