A Whole Lot of Underwear

Thanks to the wonder of Super Bowl advertising, I have finally figured out why it is so difficult to have a satisfactory relationship with a man: they use a thin veneer of depressed apathy to mask their seething anger that they have to be coerced to wake up, go to work, clean themselves and their homes, and be courteous to the people around them, and their trade-off for all this emasculation is - wait for it - a DODGE CHARGER.

First of all, if you can't wake up, care for your pets, keep up basic hygienic practices, bring in an income, and put your underwear into a laundry basket without my intervention, kindly scamper back to your cave and leave me alone. But if all you get in exchange for a life of such utter desperation is a car, and the car you choose is a Dodge Charger, well. My respect for you is such that I might just ask you to carry my lip balm.

I think this might have been the Super Bowl commercial that annoyed me most, but it's kind of hard to choose. One scene of men marching around in their underwear while being encouraged to return to their grunting neanderthal roots is kind of indistinguishable from another, as are the women portrayed as nagging harpies. Much was made of the Focus on the Family anti-abortion ad, which I thought was a little odd and out of touch with their target audience but tastefully done. What really disturbed me was the Focus on the Family-esque views of masculinity, femininity, gender roles, and relationships that permeated the rest of the advertising - right down to a painfully stereotypical gay couple slapping each other over Megan Fox (one of the best parts of my evening was that I was sitting in a room with people who asked, "Should I know who that is?")

In case my sarcasm isn't dripping loudly enough, I don't actually believe that men are incapable of being functional adults (although some of them insist on proving me wrong), which I believe to be a more important question than whether they're capable of being masculine, whatever that means. Speaking of which, when I think of a "manly man," the first image that pops into my mind is totally of a guy wearing Dockers. "Wear The Pants" indeed.