Adland told by regulator: You can no longer vilify husbands in ads
Husbands can no longer be portrayed negatively as a group, the Ad Standards Board has declared in a ruling which will have major implications for how male characters are scripted in future Australian advertising.
Ad campaign portrayed husbands as “pests”
Saying in a ruling against a WA pest control company that “this style of humour is no longer acceptable”, the ASB stated that community expectations have changed, and signalled that ads that were previously okay may now get banned.
On many previous occasions the advertising watchdog has cleared complaints about how men are portrayed in ads, with lazy, annoying or dim-witted husbands a regular advertising cliche.
Political correctness is getting out of hand. We are on the way to becoming a humourless society.
Dear ASB,
We don’t need your help fighting imaginary battles against the system and placing us in the role of victims.
That stuff’s for chicks.
Sincerely,
Men
Looking forward to more amusement from these mental pygmies in 2017. And the slow strangulation of creativity.
The best part about being a bloke is we don’t care. Get a life whoever started this nanny state crap and to ‘The Men’ who complained.
Yours…
Bloke
Just more PC annoying nonsense – get a life.
I actually think this isn’t just about portraying men in a terrible light. Every one of these adverts places women as smug, condescending, long suffering partners of their weak, pathetic and dithering husbands. I’ve always thought that trying to appeal to a particular gender by making the other look useless just turns everyone off.
There is a mountain, in fact, a world of difference between the dramatic depiction of a lazy, problematic husband/wife, and a message that announces “all husbands and wives are lazy and problematic.” We have taken to the path of PC with such enthusiasm, that we have lost sight of the centre of things.
In any human interest story or drama/comedy, there must be a stereo type of some caliber. If we have a hero and a heroine, we must expect to have a dupe or a dullard. I have heard mother in law jokes that were genuinely funny, yes the husband or wife failed to impress the mother of either the bride or the groom respectively, but the jokes were depicting stereotypical characters, and suggested situation comedy, not attacking all women who happen to be mothers in law.
We should, as creative people be striving to lift the audiences above the kind of bland all encompassing PC thinking that stifles creativity as it also stifles imagination and good humour.
Remember that we can’t claim the right to laugh at anybody, until we can openly laugh at ourselves.
This is a great day.
As a male, I feel I’ve missed out on the experience of being patronized and victimized by a group of obnoxious, self serving idiots who feel they have the right to speak on my behalf.
Looks like 2017 is the year I’ll knock that one from the bucket list 🙂