I’ll be contributing a piece to In Media Res in a couple weeks that will explore a few of the more obvious ads in greater detail, but I want to do a general overview here, too.

Rather than look at any ads in particular (although I am working on some specific thoughts about the Dockers commercial that I will post later), I’d rather look at some broad themes that played out over the course of the broadcast. These all overlap, yet are distinct enough to provide a framework.

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Here’s the Motorola Droid phone.

And here’s the Palm Pre.

Keep those images in mind.

But first… it has been a long break since my last post (November?). There’s a reason, and it’s not laziness. I genuinely do try to keep a close eye on the television and seek out examples of Manvertising, and the last couple months have, frankly, not offered much. Keep in mind this blog is not a catch-all for the anxieties related to gender in advertising; that would basically mean I’d have to be posting all day and night.

This blog is for a specific type of anxiety in advertising, the kind related to men ages 18 to 35, and typically involves the defense of very traditional masculinities in the bodies of stereotypically UN-masculine men through the use of humor. The ads I’m looking at in this post do not necessarily conform to that description overtly, but since they involve technology (a primary object of the demographic I typically examine) I think they offer some interesting examples.

That all leads me back to this latest post.

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The new ad campaign for the Playstation video game system is a marvel of manvertising. Here’s just one example:

The gender associations are obviously rich: women have no interest in playing games, they are complainers and whiners, they are defined by domesticity (seriously, an aromoatherapy candles reference?), and they are segregated inside the home, unable to sit in the space where the system actually resides.

The marketing, though, buries an even more insidious tactic: by associating THOSE things with women, the deeper message is that the OTHER functions of the system will appeal to women. The network capability, passive entertainment functions, and extended technological options are “appropriate” for women.

Men, too, are segregated here: not visible, immersed in the game, “insensitive,” and oblivious, their behavior is taken as a given and not interrogated or questioned — only dismissed as annoying.

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