What is manvertising? It’s a specific genre of advertising aimed at men, primarily ages 18-34, that uses humor to present images and narratives using gendered stereotypes that are sexist and misogynistic. The humor works as a self-defense mechanism to prevent criticism: if these ads laugh at themselves, the tactic suggests, they cannot be taken seriously or critiqued.
I’ll occasionally update this glossary with terminology relating to tropes used consistently in manvertising.
Have a suggestion or would like to add one of your own? Feel free!
1. Dugout
2. Manphrodisiac
3. Mommy Resentment
4. Regression
5. Secret Club
The “dugout” is a term I first ran across in an article by David Greven to help explain the rash of movies in the early 2000s involving adolescent men struggling to grow up. What he argues for is a metaphorical (and often literal) space where these men can be together to share in this struggle, and that the women who are allowed access are given limited privileges and ultimately serve to bolster the young men’s masculinity. It’s a brilliant article.
This term more than adequately applies to manvertising, which often obsesses about delineating physical spaces and places where men can safely congregate without interference from women and gay men. Like the treehouse and its “no girls allowed!” sign nailed to the door, the dugout is a place where men aren’t judged or evaluated, and don’t have to worry about responsibilities. Advertisers frequently invoke this imagery through their products and insist that purchase and consumption will grant men access to this mystical space. The contradiction, of course, is that the very existence of this place means that it represents all the things it purports to free these men from; in other words, it’s a site of incredible anxiety and tension, which is exactly why men in these commercials rarely or never actually find success in them. Finally, when women are allowed inside the dugout, as Greven identifies, it’s usually so they can fulfill sexual fantasies of some kind.
The “man cave” is obviously a literalized dugout.
Beer commercials are undoubtedly the primary place to find this imagery. It’s practically ubiquitous in the genre.
It’s also become a pretty standard plot for movies. Old School is a prototypical example.
The manphrodisiac tactic is simple: purchase and use this product and women will have sex with you because you now bear a special power. It’s been around forever, probably one of the founding principles of advertising itself, I’d guess. Manvertising, of course, exaggerates the concept and injects it with humor — typically by amping up the ways in which the man in the ad isn’t desirable, as well as the number of women who ultimately find him sexually attractive. This is critical: this “humor” acts as the built-in defense against misogyny and sexism, as well as to provide the shield against anyone who doesn’t find it funny. “How could you not think this is funny! It’s obviously funny!”
The tactic is used frequently for grooming products to alleviate the potential associations with homosexuality. All that getting ready and looking good isn’t for the other guys in the dugout, it’s for the ladies. We know that because they immediately flock to the user, often in groups or even crowds. My old favorite Axe loves this tactic and has relied upon it almost exclusively. A frequent trope in ads presenting a manphrodisiac is the presence of bisexual women who are more than happy to provide the girl-on-girl fantasy to the bearer of the special power. [See the Old Spice ad at the bottom of this entry; two women holding hands enter the room at the beginning; where are they coming from? And why do they need Bruce Campbell when they're clearly happy with each other?]
Examples are too numerous to count. Just turn on the television (especially during any sporting event) and there will be at least two to three examples in an hour. Old Spice recently used it as well:
Back to list.
MOMMY RESENTMENT
Mommy Resentment is one of the easiest and most frequently used types of manvertising. The setup is simple: the man’s wife/girlfriend/partner is positioned as a maternal figure who bears a very specific judgmental authority in the relationship. The man is immature, juvenile, and unable or unwilling to perform a specific task. As the woman grows more exasperated, she punishes him, usually through a series of evaluative looks, sometimes with her arms crossed. She is the angry mommy, punishing the little boy for misbehaving. The ad presents a solution through a product or service that will give the man the power or ability to achieve maturity.
What’s disturbing about this form of manvertising is the way women are used as a visual shorthand to emphasize men’s “natural” immaturity. Simultaneously constructing men as juvenile and women as angry, bitter, and judgmental, the ads ultimately suggest men have the “right” to be resentful of women who act this way. The product/service offers a release from the incessant judgment coming from women, and allows the men to continue to be immature and juvenile without changing a thing except the punishment. Thus the resentment is built-in to the ads. Thus, I would argue, these ads are more about shutting mommy up than anything else.
Examples are everywhere. Here’s one from Lowe’s. Note the silent woman with arms crossed.
Back to list.
Manvertising frequently presents images of men regressing back to childhood to literalize the way their products will return the user to an adolescent state or remove the stresses or difficulties of adulthood. If being a grownup means having responsibilities, such advertising works to show that magical spaces still exist where men won’t be bothered or interrupted during their fun.
These ads often show women as overbearing, judging, and punishing figures, maternal monsters preventing men from just cutting loose and having a good time. Video games, beer, fast food, and restaurants often use this tactic in an effort to show they offer this type of magic.
Hummer very successfully used regression to sell the mythology of power, domination, and freedom.
Back to list.
The “secret club” is a tactic used by marketers to indicate that men who purchase their products will be the beneficiaries of insider knowledge that grants them access to a closed community. What makes it different from the dugout are space and place. The dugout may or may not include special knowledge; the secret club insists upon it — and the community may only be an intellectual one rather than an actual place.
However, the real message of the secret club is that other people are excluded — almost always meaning women and those pesky gay men. Membership in the club (gained by purchasing the product) guarantees protection from association with those groups. Typically, though, the product in question uses the tactic because of the anxiety that connects it to women or gay men. This is most obviously illustrated by the tactic’s use in grooming products.
Axe grooming products are a prototypical example. Here they create a perfect secret club by suggesting the use of their products will result in the need for a handbook to cope with “all the women.”
Maybe the best example of this in recent years was the “Men of the Square Table” campaign with the “Man Laws” by Miller Lite.
Back to list.
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
[...] must for such commercials. Only Real Men need apply for Mike’s, which places them squarely in Secret Club [...]
Pingback by Mike’s Hard Lemonade: “Those Kinds of Issues” and Manly Reassurance « August 1, 2010 @ 2:56 pm