Irony, Dockers, and Manvertising – UPDATED

I recall sitting in one of those huge undergrad lecture halls, early in the morning, listening to a professor lecture on the meaning of irony. She pointed out the obvious, of course, that irony is defined as the use of words to convey something different from their literal meaning — but she also reminded us that irony works only if the intended audience knows that literal meaning.

This moment comes back to me frequently when I try to analyze manvertising, which depends almost entirely on this characteristic. The irony, though, isn’t very subtle or sophisticated when it comes to manvertising; in fact, it’s quite obvious and blatant. I say all this in the context of this new campaign by Dockers to sell khakis to men, which, to me, illustrates almost perfectly the desperation and anxiety felt by advertising firms and their corporate clients to tap into the cultural fantasies about what it means to be a man.

Draft FCB, the firm behind this campaign, rolled out the new approach on December 1 of last year, and it culminated this last weekend during the Super Bowl with the bizarre, somewhat inexplicable “We Wear No Pants” commercial. Draft FCB is no stranger to manvertising, having done this campaign for Miller Lite in which the tired old stereotype of men being unable to say “I love you” is played for laughs:

They also are behind the Taco Bell ads that have bolstered that mythology that real men really just want to eat a lot — enough for two people, actually:

In other words, they are very familiar with manvertising, with its tropes, constructions, and narratives. They understand the key elements: misogynistic humor played for laughs as a defense mechanism to prevent the criticism of regressive male masculinity. It’s important to keep that in mind when considering the decision by Dockers to revitalize their brand, which was extremely popular in the 1990s but has since fallen off.

The new campaign fits the manvertising bill perfectly. A New York Times article describes it as “half serious, half kidding, both sending up and saluting the truisms about masculinity” which is, of course, the very basis of manvertising: if the ad laughs at itself, it can’t be criticized. “It’s time to answer the call of manhood,” one ad reads. “It’s time to wear the pants.” The ad shown above, which was originally on the Dockers website as a “Man-ifesto” but has since been replaced, describes the campaign effectively and thoroughly. I’ll paraphrase:

1. There was a time, somewhere in the past, when things were better because men were allowed to act the way nature intended them to: aggressively and without any signs of weakness, which are both traits of women and gay men.

2. Back then, women understood their place in a cultural hierarchy placing them below men. Men were in charge because that’s the way nature intended it.

3. Since that magical time, the influence of women and gay men has eroded the natural system. The result has been a culture critical of the way nature intended men to act, and an effort to erase the system of genders that nature intended.

4. The effect of erasing the genders that nature intended as been utter and complete chaos. Cities have literally crumbled. Men have stopped acting in the ways nature intended and everything has gone right to hell.

5. The solution: men need to start acting the way nature intended.

I emphasize the role of “nature” in this paraphrasing because that’s crucial not just to this campaign, but all of manvertising. The cultural fantasy of this particular type of masculinity depends mightily upon a belief in inherency, that men act in certain ways because they are supposed to — and any criticism of those behaviors is unjust and potentially disastrous for society.

Draft FCB attempted from the very beginning to deflect criticism and to position the ads as somehow socially relevant, and used female executives to present the campaign — a tactic frequently used by advertising firms to attempt to alleviate allegations of sexism and misogyny. “The Dockers brand of masculinity is less about ‘Don’t eat quiche,’” said one creative director just before the rollout, “and more about being chivalrous and mature.” Another VP, Jennifer Sey, gave an interview to Brandweek worthy of reactionary sociology:

“In today’s world, men have lost a bit of footing, in part because women have come so far, but we also found a few surprising facts: Eighty-percent of those who suffered unemployment in the last year were men. Women outnumber men in the workforce now. But the most surprising fact of all was that men’s testosterone levels have been dropping by a percentage point a year for the last 20 years. All these factors add to up say, ‘Wow, men are struggling in today’s world.’”

She continued:

“But men have told us that they are expected to be more sensitive, to do more at home. They are confused about what it means to be a man today. This led us to the pants idea and essentially, the goal is to provide empathy and encouragement, but also a sense of humor and to help define the new modern idea of man, which includes sensitivity, chivalry, ambition, decisiveness, as well as empathy, so we can inspire today’s men to be men.”

The level of confusion, I might suggest, about what it “means to be a man” might be more with Draft FCB than with consumers. Her language is critical here: men “are expected” to be more sensitive and and to do more at home, which is not the same thing as men expressing an interest to perform either function; simultaneously, she suggests men need “empathy and encouragement.” And, then, just to complete the manvertising loop, the sense of humor is inserted to release all the tension contained within the obvious positioning of men as victims, the bearers of an unjust social criticism, and needing simply to return to the behaviors natured intended. As Sey herself confirms, Dockers is merely trying to inspire “men to be men.” In a nutshell, that’s called inherency.

Then, to complete the campaign, the Super Bowl ad was released, capping off the campaign. There are three key details in the commercial that make it classic manvertising:

1. It features conventionally unattractive men. This has become a key trope in manvertising: the “average” man is hailed as the target consumer, not spoken to through the fantasy of perfection.

2. The narrative follows a group of like-minded men banding together to take on the challenge. Nothing, apparently, makes men feel safer about overcoming their own insecurities and feelings of victimization than being surrounded by other men with similar emotional responses. This is precisely why the Promise Keepers movement succeeded so significantly in the 1990s.

3. The final narration literally calls to men to join the mission. In some ways, this acts as a secret club, which I’ve written about before as a standard convention of manvertising. But even more so, it serves as a challenge, confronting the viewer with a moment of insecurity: “calling all men” is a way of weeding out those who are not real men.

This all brings me back to irony. What these ads are also saying, through that magical convention of irony, is that women (and gay men, that omnipresent sidekick of women in manvertising) should stop wearing the pants. The layers of irony here are thick: the campaign literally wants men to buy pants and wear them, but do so through the use of a metaphor suggesting that men have stopped acting in the way nature intended. And yet, by using irony, the ads have a disturbing undertone about women’s place in culture. Following the double logic of literal and metaphorical pants, it must be mentioned that, until less than fifty years ago, women really could not wear literal pants without cultural repercussions, and to this very day they cannot wear metaphorical pants without companies like Dockers and Draft FCB fearing that cities will begin to crumble. The literal and different meanings at play in this ad campaign are both disturbing and deeply regressive.

Finally, then, and to return to my undergrad professor, who reminded us of the importance of the audience knowing the literal meaning for irony to work effectively, there is no doubt that Dockers and Draft FCB knew that their audience would be delighted to see an ad that isn’t about pants at all, but is instead a call to return to that magical time in the past when things were “better.” Readers of this blog know that this is yet another standard trope of manvertising. What makes this Dockers ad so deeply troubling is the way it invokes feminist history as a means of providing “empathy and encouragement” to male consumers. And, thus, I can think of no better way to end this post than to replay a predecessor to the new Dockers campaign, the infamous Burger King commercial in which men’s anxiety about “being men” is spun through the manvertising machine and processed as pure anti-feminist vitriol. In much the same way, Dockers joins them, merely replacing burgers with pants.

UPDATED 2/12

I want to add a brief epilogue to this piece based on a comment I read on another site in reference to this post. It suggested that my argument here is faulty because, if reversed, it would undoubtedly be sexist. I’m assuming what the commenter means is that, by nature of that reversal logic, it is also sexist as presented here. This is by far the most common reaction to any critique of contemporary masculinity.

The problem with that argument is that it simply doesn’t work. The Dockers ad cannot be reversed, nor can any piece of manvertising. It works because it differentiates gender; in fact, that’s the reason it exists at all. To suggest that this ad could be reversed is not possible. Since women have never “worn the pants” in this culture without, as I have argued, intense fear and anxiety (remember, cities will collapse?) the narrative as presented here cannot function with a simple reversal.

The core theme of this ad (and with all of manvertising) is an anxiety and subsequent resentment by men who feel as if their power has been unjustly taken away from them. That dynamic is based upon cultural constructions of gender, so to suggest that the relationship is equal when reversed, that the “meaning” would be the same if a gender reversal was placed into the narrative, is impossible. The ad exists, the campaign exists, and the narrative “works” because it taps into those anxieties and fears.

I’m not sure how it’s sexist to critique that fear and anxiety, and to point out that the ad is tapping into and legitimizing those feelings. What’s sexist is for our culture to continue to accept the mythology that there was ever a “magical time” in the past when some other situation existed, that men had unquestioned, inherent power and authority, and that such a situation was “right.” What’s sexist is to continue to use these tactics and mythologies to sell consumer goods, to validate men’s resentment toward women and gay men, and to blame them for the apparent crumbling of society by suggesting that if only men had that authority back and could wear the metaphorical pants again all would be right with the world. It’s true many men do feel emasculated, powerless, and adrift. But rather than play into those fears and make them seem rooted in a natural reality, why not help expose the illusion behind them? Why not take them apart and take a deeper look? Manvertising succeeds precisely because it reinforces the deep fantasy that men should have a natural birthright to power. That, by definition, is sexism.

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