In an effort to passify those who think men are portrayed in advertising as over sexed, neanderthal morons, JWT has announced it will cease characterizing men as boob-fixated, humping jack rabbits. The change in policy follows the release of a book by one of the agency’s vice presidents, Marian Salman, who says men have been mocked in advertising for far too long. While true when it comes to illustrating men as clueless buffoons as Verizon did recently, to strip away certain innate behaviors is questionable. Perhaps it’s all payback for, until recently, portraying women as clueless, man-serving kitchen maids.
Salman says, “All too often in the marketing arena, we’re portraying man as the victim – of his sexual organ or his lust, his emotional neediness, his overinflated ego or his sheer ineptitude.” OK, true. That could be toned down a bit but do we want to re-engineer man to appear as if he’s become some sexless, robotic, new age, virtue-spewing automaton?
