Pajiba

What?! Holding hands and listening to stuff is HARD!!!

I don't watch as much TV as I used to, but I recall a particularly offensive commercial that was popular maybe a year ago on primetime and late night cable. It was for some diet pill, and featured the most obnoxious statement ever made:

"Are you overweight? Body fat can accumulate over your legs and midsection, and is extremely unsightly and unattractive. However, you can reduce your body fat with our stupid fucking pills! Shrink your fat with the power of amphetamine, lard-ass! Then maybe a man will condescend to sleep with you! If you play your cards right!

Okay, I guess only the first two and a half sentences or so were in the actual ad, but the spirit is there.

Still not as bad as the "arms of an angel" animal shelter commercials.

Give them a break. They're a nonprofit that needs money for operations & the appeal to sensitivity is virtually the only way to get Average Joe Flyover Country to divert some of his Digiorno's & Coke Zero budget to help the animals. Ads for animal welfare programs > ads for anything else.

"If you don't have an iphone, you don't have an iPhone." JESU-JUMPED-UP-GODTOPUS do I hate those fucking ads. Apple is so fucking arrogant and it drives me insane. Those are just the smarmiest commercials. Especially since the only thing that it can do that my Droid can't is run iTunes, and the sooner I'm away from that interface the better.

Heh heh. "Interface."

Joanna, please stop writing your painful whiney articles and get back in the kitchen where you belong. You'll find far less to annoy you when you're put back in your proper place. Thank you.

seems to me, that first one was insulting straight guys as being homophobic to a panicky degree, not gay dudes.

Damn you Klondike, I saw that first commercial and felt the rage. The 28 Days kind. Except escaped lab animals did not spread it. Horrible people did.

That one with the guy who has to listen to his wife, on the other hand, is just straight-up sexist garbage.

Last night my lady lost it & left the room because I used 409, not vinegar & baking soda, where a cat peed on a mattress. All I wanted to do was go to sleep & get a whopping 6 hours before work but she wouldn't have it. If only somebody had offered me a Klondike bar as reward for weathering her acerbic assault.

So you're saying I should get rid of my Happy Dance bitches?

Fine. But you have to get rid of all these goddamned magazines laying everywhere that you don't even read! Marie Claire? Really? No one reads this shit! PHAW!!!

Sorry, the new transported man. I'm not knocking their cause just the commercial. Geesh since I was a kid those heart wrenching tear jerking if you have a soul you will give $$$$$$ commercials have gotten increasingly disturbing. I just feel like they are preying on the emotionally weak. Yes, you have a good cause, but so do the children's hospitals and the hunger fighters and the blood centers...I'm just saying enough already. I will agree that animal cruelty and neglect is a problem that should be addressed but when I think about their cause I think about Bob Barker saying "Have you pets spade and neutered" on the price is right. Now that was effective advertising. Address the problem, plant the seed of activism, do not alienate those you want to reach. I have a christian mother who supplies me with all the guilt I need in my life. If you want my $ make me feel good about giving it, not depressed because I choose to give to another just as needy cause instead. That was all I was saying, I didn't mean to offend the cause, sorry.

The commercial I hate MOST right now is for some laundry detergent -- a teen girl's dad wipes his dirty hands off on a miniskirt and tosses it in the hamper, then the daughter and the mom rejoice that they've restored the miniskirt to perfect whiteness and rub it in the dad's face that they "beat" him or whatever. In the background is a creepy song where a man sings about wanting to have sex with a woman with a nice body. It's gross in a lot of ways.

Still not as bad as the "arms of an angel" animal shelter commercials.

It's not the Sarah McLachlan song is it? Please say no. IT'S ABOUT HEROIN ADDICTION, DAMMIT.

It is the Sarah McLachlan song Twig.

"Do you have freckles and also love to breathe?"

"Do you have lips and also love suede?"

"I say good on the writers from "Two And Half Men" for finding new jobs!"

And that, my friends, is how you fill the cheap seats. Well done, Branded.

Ditto on the I-Phone "if you don't have one" BULLSHIT, there is NOTHING that overpriced hipster gear can do that an Android can do a hundred times better.

Cram it up your ass, Apple.

I'm glad that so many people share my intense hatred for that Toyota kid. I swear, he's put me off Toyota forever. Not that I would buy one of those wretched Highlanders, but I was contemplating the Yaris. No more, Toyota.

What irks me, the mother of a boy and the wife of a really good dude, is that there are a whole lot of commercials that make men look helpless, homophobic, sex-crazed, alcohol-addicted, or just plain stupid. There's one seemingly innocuous commercial (for some cleaning product, I think) in which the husband forgets to put the lid on the blender and then stands there with a "Gee, I'm stupid" shrug while his wife cleans up his mess.

Why aren't men more upset by these things? Why do we allow these stereotyped portrayals of men?

idgiepug, I couldn't agree more, but unfortunately I think the people who comment on this site, and people like your husband, are the minority. We are largely a nation of shrill bitches and clueless douchebags, like what are portrayed on TV, it's just not clear if TV is the chicken or the egg.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing my hatred of that wee mop-headed moppet. Argh, those commercials drive me nuts. I majored in advertising (yeah, I know, what the fuck was I thinking), and the first thing they taught us is that commercials are supposed to make people want to buy your product. All that kid does is make me want to go all ELF on every damn Toyota I see and firebomb the shit out of them.

Whew. I feel surprisingly better now.

The only commercials I truly can't stand are the Domino's commercials. "Keep sending us your ideas. We are committed to making our pizzas better for you."...Fuck you. How about you just make good pizza? I am not going to keep giving you money so I can help you be good at your job.

Jack, Domino's doesn't even have to make good pizza. Just convince the founder to stop funding crazypants organizations like Operation Rescue.*

*The preceding comment reflects only the opinion of a cranky commentator and not the opinion of Pajiba or the management therein. I just enjoy disclaimers on my comments.

i'm with you, joanna. hate, hate, HATE!

Really? You're that pissed off about it? I honestly don't see what's so awful about these commercials (aside from not enticing me to buy their products, and therefore being a waste of time--but lately ALL commercials are like that, even the ones advertising stuff I actually do want). It's supposed (keyword) to be funny. They're not saying holding a man's hand for 5 seconds is a terrible horror to be endured only with clenched teeth and sweating brow, but to a couple of hard-ass, jerk-off bikers? Yeah, it probably is. And pretty much since the dawn of time, people have been making unfunny jokes about how gut-wrenching it is to listen to a woman talk for 5 seconds about the 47 different shades of yellow they're thinking about painting the guest room. As far as I know, no guy really feels that way (or at least not to such an extent), but it's a great way for Klondike to capitalize on a lame, safe joke. "What wouldja do" has always been their thing, and this is just their way of revamping it a little. But I seriously doubt that, in light of how many people are speaking out in favor of gay marriage, Klondike is actually trying to sell their ice cream bars with homophobic and/or sexist appeals. Learn to take a joke, even if it isn't a very funny one.

@ idgiepug and idleprimate,

It's my impression that there are plenty of objections, both by men's groups and by mainstream feminists (and by mainstream feminists, I mean actual feminists, not the kind of straw man radical separatist feminists that people seem to think are mainstream feminists) to these kind of ads, mainly because they present an extremely twisted view of masculinity. Several men's groups and feminists have in common the idea that popular media masculinity is damaging to men.

The problem that idleprimate mentions, IMO, is not really due to ideological differences between feminists and men concerned about these issues. Feminists do talk about these things, but for obvious reasons, they mostly talk about issues that pertain to women. And often what you will see is an article in a feminist space (i.e. generally involving women) that specifically discusses the media's treatment of women, a concerned man will jump in and say "Well it's bad for men too! Haven't you seen all the ads about bumbling dads? etc etc". And it's not that it's not a valid point, but it derails a discussion about women into a discussion about men. Really what needs to happen is that concerned men's groups need to be a little louder, like feminists have been, about how fucked up it is -- and they need to do it in their own articles/blogs/spaces (and it would help for them to not treat feminism like it's the enemy, because it's not, but that's an issue for another day, tyvm MRAs.) The discussions can indeed be parallel and simpatico, but at the moment people tend to treat gender issues in the media like it's a zero sum game, and issues one gender has can't be discussed without someone trying to play the Oppression Olympics by saying the presented argument is invalid because the other gender has it just as bad or worse.

I went to a Cavs game one time where during halftime, they had a show of rescue dogs running around catching frisbees and doing tricks. These dogs were amazing and adorable and healthy and LOVED and all of them had been rescued from shelters. If the ASPCA wanted to get people to donate, rather than lunge for the remote, they would make commercials featuring things like that and showing how donations IMPROVE the lives of these animals, rather than making people turn away from the horrible images. The people most likely to donate are animal lovers; animal lovers don't want to see an animal suffering, so they (we) won't watch the commercials. This seems like a basic concept to me and I can't for the life of me figure out why charitable organizations haven't changed their tactics over the years.

Ugh, I'm so glad to see all the hate for the asshole Higherlander kid. He reminds me of every privileged, smug, arrogant trust-fund twat I went to elementary school with (my working class parents busted their asses to send me to a private school as a child, so there were plenty of them). I want to smack those fucking headphones off his smarmy little head then drive him around in a 20-year-old pickup truck in front of all his friends. But he has to sit in the back, on one of those microscopic fold-down seats.

Re: The entire men's debate - ...probably because it really isn't as bad for guys IRL as it is for women.

I'm not going to lie, men are privileged in our society. No one's going to go, "Well, he's not as capable because he's (stereotypical view of men's emotions)," or what have you. Men make more money and have more opportunities available to them in the general sphere. Men don't have to worry about their safety as much around the opposite gender as women do. Most prominent intellects, people in power, etc., etc. are men. (Honestly, the most powerful woman in the US government is likely the one that was appointed by...a guy. A black guy, but a guy nonetheless.)

So I think that the take on guys as troglodyte buffoons isn't quite as harmful as the portrayal of women as overemotional shrews.

Finally, as sexist as it sounds - boys don't cry. Could you imagine the uproar if men's groups spoke up? I think that no matter what they'd say - unless the offense was so egregious it'd be plain for all to see - a significant portion of us would sniff, point, and laugh.

feminists and hardcore homosexuals are the only ones to complain. I eat klondike bars, and guys into guys is just not right. But yes, I would endure holding hands with a dude (something I don't do all that often with my girlfriend in public) if I got a klondike bar. Their mission for ads to make me desire their product: success.

I don't like hearing nagging all the time. If the person complaining was a friend of mine I'd tell them to can it. But you can't say that to your significant other. What you do is just accept the things that bother you. Would I willingly partake in such a thing for a klondike bar? yes.

The advertisements have my vote.

I could not agree more about the animal shelter commercials--I can't remember how prevalent those types of commercials are in the US, but in the UK it seems like every two seconds you're either being asked to sponsor a dog, a donkey, or perhaps a starving child? Like hello, which thing is not like the other. God.

I would also respond much better to an ad that showed the good work animal charities do than to the ones that show the animals suffering. And when there's an ad about children that follows the same formula as the dog ones I just want to throw the TV out the window. It's so exploitative and gross.

I see your annoying kid in an annoying car commercial and raise you one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrtW0ohL8MY

The lines the first two kids are spouting out are just terrible. It's like an ad for Future Tools of America. They try to absolve themselves with the last kid, but too little too late.

*beard*

Fudge Brownies indeed.

Aw, you got stuck with FiOS for TV service because of your condo? Ouch. When you get a chance I’d check out DISH if I were you. A co-worker and I at DISH were just talking about it…we have the most HD channels, the largest DVR hard drive, and the TV Everywhere app, which will let you watch Live TV anywhere you canget a 3G or wifi connection for your mobile device.