“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” ~Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss for Ajax Cups
If you’re checking in here, you’ve probably gotten an email from me telling you The Hard Way is on sale now. Or maybe you got the email secondhand from someone I know who forwarded it to you. Naturally, I truly appreciate my network of friends and acquaintances. Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling like I’ve just inflicted an advertisement for my book on all of you. And this distresses me.
I’ve long been aware of the bombardment of the US landscape with ads. Television, radio, magazines, billboards, t-shirts, banners, emails. Brand names, corporate logos, slogans, tag lines, catch phrases. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy! You’ll feel better.
It’s oppressive.
The people on television commercials are the worst. What a bunch of idiots. Shouting idiots. It’s impossible to get away from imbeciles yelling. They can’t believe how well a product cleans! Look how fun a snick-snack is! Buy this stupid crap and it will make you happy!
New this year is that lots of the shiilers are bellowing in indistinguishable accents. Oh, and the husbands are the worst. Men do stupid things and wives roll their eyes. Can you believe the dolts women have to put up with?
Arg. It’s freaking me out. Some of my favorite people are men. I take offense on their behalf!
I guess I’m worried that people are going to mimic this behavior. OK, I don’t actually believe that the people watching television are sheep. But can’t we raise the bar a little?
Wait a sec … something just came to me. I’m picturing a television commercial for my book. A woman is on a hammock reading The Hard Way. Her husband comes by and asks her if she wants a soda. She treats him rudely, but in a comical way. Maybe she tells him to go do some chores. She rolls her eyes, of course. Then the husband passes through the frame with the lawn mower buzzing. She puts her head deeper into the book. He passes again and grass blows onto her and the book cover. Close-up on her brushing the grass off the cover while rolling her eyes as the husband goes blithely on his way. The voice over yells in a quasi-German-Russian-Japanese-French accent “READ … ZE HARD WAY.”
messiestobjects said,
July 4, 2008 at 12:10 pm
The stupid man thing makes me crazy, too. I mean, Men can be stupid, sure. So can women, so can anybody. But commercials, and also pretty much all of the new dumb comedy movies out there, have that thing where they sort of equate being a big dumb guy as the norm for manliness. It may sound shrill of me to say this, but I think that that is actually having an effect on the way people behave, and I have anecdotal proof to back it up! To wit:
I don’t like televised sports. I enjoy reading, and I use big words occasionally in conversation. I don’t talk to people about my sexual exploits, nor do I go around trying to hump everything that moves. I can be dumb, sure; I just decided to enter the stock market at about the worst time ever. But generally I value intelligent decisions over infantile behavior. Because of these facts, and also due to my introverted nature, I was asked by someone I work with a few months back whether I was gay. Apparently several people had been wondering.
I don’t have an effeminate nature, I’ve never stared at a guy’s butt longingly, and I don’t really have any of the usual stereotypical gay “things”, like a love of Streisand or showtunes. She said they were pretty much wondering because I don’t act like a big dumb sport-watching sexually stunted everyman.
Yet another prophetic aspect of Idiocracy coming true. Fucking hell.
Gary said,
July 4, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Did Michael just come out?
Since I’m stuck on Zappa, I immediately thought of a paragraph from this:
http://hogranch.com/cheese.html – you might figure out which one I mean…
Written in 1981 – could have been yesterday, IMO
Anyway, the point is this is nothing new.
Oh and Julie is now a spammer. But hey ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Gary said,
July 4, 2008 at 11:56 pm
“Men do stupid things and wives roll their eyes. Can you believe the dolts women have to put up with?”
That isn’t reality? Seems pretty accurate to me.
Jennifer said,
July 5, 2008 at 9:05 am
Yeah, my husband is pretty manly, but I often have occasion to roll my eyes. I’ve figured out a while ago there’s a male version of “dumb blonde” – there are guys that play dumb to get out of doing things they don’t want to do, like going to the ballet or folding the laundry. If a guy doesn’t let on he’s as smart, cultured, capable, etc., as he really is, chances are he’s not going to be hauled off to the theater or handed a basket of stuff to fold and put away. He’s percevied as a big, dumb idiot and therefore, off the hook.
I know this is a very wide, blanket generalization, but you get the point. And most guys will try it. Like my nuclear engineer father in law, who for some reason, cannot figure out why you don’t wash everything in hot water and bleach. Needless to say, he doesn’t do the laundry. Or my husband, the chemist, who cannot wash a glass or dish properly to save his life. Needless to say, my FIL doesn’t do laundry and my DH doesn’t do dishes. For the record though, I don’t do a damn bit of yardwork except a little puttering in the garden. I’m just a girl – I can’t operate a lawnmower.
Yes, I know the examples I picked are pretty sexist and I am sure there are people that would take offense to that, but the thing is, those of us in these relationships have agreed to these kind of roles. I don’t mind that my DH plays dumb and doesn’t do dishes (and in return, I leave his lawnmower and other implements of destruction alone), and my MIL is onto my FIL’s supposed laundry idiocy, but she accepts it and sends him out to build a deck or install windows. It’s when these roles are forced onto someone who doesn’t want them that it becomes a problem.
Oh my god. There was a point in there somewhere, but I just don’t know what it is. I should know better than to comment before coffee.
Jennifer said,
July 5, 2008 at 9:06 am
BTW, you don’t have to like showtunes or Barbra Streisand to be gay. Just like being an avid fan of televised sports, specifically football, doesn’t make me any less girly.
messiestobjects said,
July 5, 2008 at 10:07 am
“BTW, you don’t have to like showtunes or Barbra Streisand to be gay.”
No of course not. I was simply making the point that those are pretty widely accepted stereotypes about gay men. Whether or not they’re accurate, they are stereotypes, and that television seems to have an agenda of raising the bar even lower (misuse intended) for what separates the men from the girly boys. They’re obliquely saying, “Behave this way or you’re not a man”.
messiestobjects said,
July 5, 2008 at 10:18 am
Hey Gary, I might have to reprint that article on my blog.
julieluongo said,
July 5, 2008 at 10:24 am
Yeah, I like the cheese.
I grew up in a socialist society – “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” We didn’t roll our eyes at each other. And we loved show tunes.
julieluongo said,
July 5, 2008 at 10:27 am
I am a spammer. I write poetic nonsense in between ads for Viagra aka The Hard Way.
Gary said,
July 5, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I happen to love Judy Garland, though I’m not a friend of Dorothy.
julieluongo said,
July 6, 2008 at 10:21 am
I know it’s a stereotype and all, but Gary … married, with two kids … I pegged you for a straight guy.
MamaPeg is Watching You said,
July 6, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I like football and Judy Garland.
Gary said,
July 6, 2008 at 8:03 pm
My friend Scott is married and has a kid and he’s gay. He doesn’t think he is, but he is.
esmerelda05 said,
July 7, 2008 at 9:53 am
My father has always loved Barbara Streisand and it has nothing at all to do with gayness. Rather it has to do with one of his first experiences admiring a beautiful and talented and funny woman in his ‘formative’ years.
I have a good friend that has the same fixation on Debra Winger.
kc said,
July 7, 2008 at 9:59 am
I got my copy today…
Thanks, Jules. Really. You can expect a full report soon.
=)
julieluongo said,
July 7, 2008 at 10:41 am
You’re welcome, kc.
All of the guys I know are still in love with Princess Leia because of a formative experience – Return of the Jedi, bikini-clad, Jabba the Hut’s slave. It didn’t translate into super-stardom for Carrie Fischer, but it did make Return of the Jedi more popular than it had a right to, in my opinion.