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Dumb Dumb Dummies
The other day, after a nice trot uptown to visit the newest member of the family in his swank hospital cap, I caught an ad on the tube that initially looked sort of sweet in a Sweet n' Low kind of way. Now I can't recall which brand of facial tissue it was for, but the tasteful images went like this:
A man in muted earth tones looks through a window (in what is not identified as, but what clearly is a hospital nursery) at the spacy alien stare of a newborn- apparently his child. The man's eyes well up with fresh paternal tears.
An attractive woman in a clean, fluffy pink bathrobe walks down the hall in no apparent discomfort and spots her sensitive partner eyeing the baby. She cozies up to him. . . and frowns with something like disgust.
She pushes him to a different section of window and he locks eyes with a different baby's spacey alien stare. The proud papa starts to cry because finally he sees his True Child and the baby's mother hands him some facial tissue.
Yep, dopey dad fails to recognize his own baby. Thank God his Better Half is there to point out the error of his ways and clean him up when he manages to produce the tears at the right time. . . for once.
I felt kind of bad for this guy. I'm terrible at distinguishing newborns from one another unless they have remarkable characteristics (super tiny, outrageous. hair, that sort of thing).
But now I see I have to spread the pity around. Madison Avenue seems to feel that every husband is a total moron. There's a whole cultch of Idiot Husbands who fall of roofs while they are trying to fix their satellite dishes (they should have gotten cable). There are men whose wives wisely know how to do laundry that they are too stupid to negotiate. Some husbands don't know how to make a few simple calls on their (football shaped) phones to get the best rate on insurance. What about the dumb cluck who gets dressed up as a giant bunny when the rest of his family is in pastel colored "Easter best" outfits? In some ads, it is unclear what specific bit of idiocy the husband has perpetrated but there he is acting like a dolt in the background while the wife rolls her eyes and talks about how she saved money on their telephone bill (this was in an ad for Vonage). Men with children are especially not to be trusted. They will always do something amazingly foolish unless their hands are held constantly. It does no good to leave lists of instructions, explain things or call to check in. He will only do the laundry wrong, feed the kid junk or eat salsa on the white living room set with a toddler around out of spite or the inability to help himself because he is too stupid to do anything else.
How did it become the norm to depict husbands (or boyfriends- though for the most part these guys are coded as spouses) are idiots? Why is it comforting to women? Are women they to get the sense that the world can't turn properly without them? Is the humor supposed to blind women to the true message of the ad, which is that they should be totally paranoid and that only through strategic shopping can they keep the house intact and children alive in their absence? Is it supposed to be reassuring that no woman is alone in being saddled with a dolt? Do these advertisements project some kind of insane fantasy where women are all-powerful but nevertheless afflicted with insanely stupid men?
It perhaps is revealing too much for me to say that I don't think there is a gender or an age or a proclivity that is not subject to bouts of outrageous stupidity. I couldn't possibly limit my finger pointing to husbands alone. (I most frequently turn that sharp pointer back upon myself since I regularly forget to do simple things around the house, have been known to waltz out with two different color shoes on, stand on chairs with wheels to reach things off bookshelves, and walk out of grocery stores without the things I went in to get.) At any given time at least two-thirds of the world is stupid while everybody else just tries to cope until they get their turn.
Where does this trend come from and why do we like it? Is it funny enough to justify itself or is there a different longing operating? Are we trying to chuckle while secretly wishing that it could be our turn to be stupid while someone else takes up the mantle of concern about laundry and cleaning supplies, telephone service and insurance quotes for a while?
posted by Elise at 8:47 AM
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said...
Elise, thank you. This is so true, and it's a disservice to all the caring, hardworking, competent spouses and fathers out there.
4/13/2006 12:44 PM
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