ANALYSIS: TRUE. Advertisers now portray men the way they portrayed women in the 1950s: as either dumb or pretty.
“Modern men: brainless, buffed bimbos, they can’t put up a shelf to save their lives, they’re too thick to even do the laundry or look after the kids, but – oi, oi! – they don’t half look good in budgie-smugglers! Come on, boys, get yer pecs out for the girls!”
This repellent mindset might sound like the bastard child of a 1990s hen party from hell, but, if a new report from Mintel is to be believed, this is exactly how contemporary consumer “hunkvertising” depicts men – and, tragically, some us are even starting to believe it. . . .
What is more concerning is advertisers’ and programme makers’ depiction of men as stupid, subservient slaves to career-juggling supermums – a trend that runs from the buffoonery of Daddy Pig to an endless tidal wave of cretinous TV ad dads.
Lots of men are starting to notice.