Real men, it appears, drive Chevys:
A lot of commercials make sexist appeals to insecurity about masculinity, but this one is impressive because it’s just so pure. The Dodge Ram has a heated steering wheel! Manicures! Pro football players! Unstated but heavily implied: Drive Chevy or die a wimp, wimp!
I like to imagine the ad agency people sitting around, spitballing. “You know the problem? Men think they can be real men just by driving any old ludicrously oversized truck. We want to make them know that if you’re in the wrong ludicrously oversized truck, then you’re a girl.”
Curtsy: Sociological Images and Feministe.
As a girl, I want to throttle the guys sitting around their boardroom table who came up with that one. It insults the kind of men I love–and who I hope my girls will love. Smart guys who would just be bemused by the idea that calling someone a girl is an insult.
I’m still waiting for the scene where the guy gets out of his manicure car and then the two of them fuck in the back seat or the trunk thing — whatever they call what those practical vehicles have in the back…
I have to respond because ironically the back of a truck is called the “bed”. You’re absolutely right, though, this would make for a great porn scene where the slighted manicured man shows the burly man his manly side.
As far as the commercial goes I take solace in knowing that my reaction of ‘you’re both idiots driving ludicrously inefficient & overpriced vehicles’ is shared by many. I don’t expect my tastes in suburban Chicago to match those of people in Texas, Oklahoma, & other pickup-heavy states, but I certainly won’t trust Chevrolet teach me about the people who do choose pickups.
I thought all of that, and I also thought that this ad would have been so easy to turn around into a non-patriarchal ad. The ad responds to Dodge’s masculinity-based ad campaign which shows burly guys driving their trucks through exploding obstacle courses. It replies that real men drive plain, simple, cheap, unreliable Chevys, and that Dodge owners are sissies who are anxious about their masculinity.
Instead of appealing to “authentic” masculinity, it could have shown a real assortment of male and female truck owners of all types rolling their eyes at the anxiously-masculine boychild. The message could have been the authencity of trucks that ordinary people use in their work (trust me, they do where I live, and trucks are just as popular with women). But their spokesman is some NFL star I’m supposed to remember the name of, and the ad instead is about measuring dicks in the locker room. It is, indeed, vile.
This might be a bit off-topic, but when was this add released? I mean, aside from all of the completely valid psychological and sociological issues with this add, isn’t building and marketing trucks and SUVs primarily for manly men the reason the Big Three are not actually SELLING that many vehicles and had to ask for a bailout? Are they STILL rushing over the same cliff?
No. All of the major auto companies make the most profit from trucks and suvs. (Including Toyota)
The big three are suffering because they made most of their money on trucks. Their cost structure gives them a lower profit margin. This is driven in a large part by legacy costs. The NA auto market went from 17million new cars and light trucks to about 12 last year. Every major OEM is hurting. Toyota is slashing production and holding off and new product as it Honda. The other japanese companies (e.g. Nisan) are not much better off than GM.
Another guy who gets his salsa from New York City.
Get a rope.
Huh. My sister’s Silverado has heated seats. So let me see if I have this right. Keeping your hands warm means you’re a girly-girl, but if you like to keep your ass toasty, you’re Manly McStudlyDude?