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Archive for the ‘Art and Entertainment’ Category

18
Nov

The Typecasting of Men…

   Posted by: User ImageSWSamurai (About me.) Tags:

In the event that I have been asleep for some length of time and just not noticed… in some comatose state that has kept me from noticing this pre-Huxlian world we seem to be moving towards in which men are subservient and docile, I need to ask an important question.  At least it seems important to me at the moment that I am writing this.

Why are men cast, in much of the media today, as idiots, morons or just plain stupid?  I will be the first to point out that there are many out there that are, and the rest of us just have our moments from time to time.  But then again, name ANY woman that can not also fit into that description.

The point that I REALLY started noticing these things was when Carl’s Jr. started on what I can only call their “Moron Men” commercials.  You have seen them… they are the ones that usually portray the man standing in the meat section with that “deer-in-the-headlights” look, staring at the meat like someone saved up a week and took a dump in the refrigerated section.  The latest one in this assault on intelligence is the one with the “Pretty-boy” standing in the kitchen trying to make guacamole by putting a whole avocado in the blender and setting in on the lowest setting possible.  The resulting effect is a guy standing there with a dumb look on his face while the avocado bounces around inside the blender… then closes with him trying to bite into the avocado.  Unless he is a refugee from the short bus, and I think even they are smarter than that, no one would try and eat an avocado like that.

OK…  To be fair, this is not the first time that I commercial campaign has gone after people by exploiting the intelligence factor.  Mostly, in the past, it was aimed towards women, and I did not care for it then either.  Granted… now and again… it is funny.  The current trend is at the point where the joke is getting old already.

Unfortunately it does not stop with just the commercials, it has also spread to other media as well.  It seems like comic strips, TV shows and other media, even Radio commercials, have gotten on the bashing bandwagon.

OK… The ranting aside, some of them were kinda funny… the first few times.  But come on people.  Find something new to beat on.

I do understand, though… seriously.  We live in an age where the only people that you really CAN pick on, without fear of a law suit or an attack from some special interest group, is the white male between the ages of 15 and 65.   If you go after a man or woman of any non-white race, then you are being racist.  If you pick on women, then Gloria and the NOW gang of feminazis come out of the woodwork to take you to task.  If you pick on the Homeless, then Jimmy Carter puts on his cape and flies in with his Nobel Prize of power to lay you to rest.  If you pick on the handicapped… well…  I am not sure who their spokes person is, but they will come out and attack.  Somehow, I think it would be neat to see Stephen Hawking fly in with a cape and protect them all… but that is a story for another time.

If you are sitting there, thinking that I am writing this out of hate… I am not.  I understand very well how the marketing system works.  I know that commercials are geared towards certain niche crowds that the writers know will probably bring in the most traffic, and that these commercials cater to the people that live in that region that they are shown.  I have to think that Carl’s Jr. probably used the Paris Hilton commercial out here in California, but in Pennsylvania they probably had a gal dressed in full smock and hair in a bun, “getting dirty” washing the family horse and buggy with the tag line… “You English will certainly like our fresh Amish beef steaks.”   This probably would not work in someplace like Utah…  in some cases one family would fill an entire Carl’s Jr… and that is just with the wives.

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3.2

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27
Sep

Marketing gone too far…

   Posted by: User ImageSWSamurai (About me.) Tags:

There is this show that I like on the Sci Fi channel called Eureka. It is about a little town that is peopled by only genius’.  This town is supposedly in a classified location and built to house the best minds in the country in a place where they can work with relative safety.  All this while the town’s main law figure in the town is the only one without a high IQ.

OK…  My sales pitch completed, I do have to say that I really like the program, in spite of the fact that the characters are stereotypical of most show of this type.  I will discuss my analysis of TV shows in a later post. But the point of this post is that this series has taken the whole marketing and sponsorship thing a little too far… ok… a LOT too far.

You see… one of their sponsors is “Degree for men.”  While most of the time you are only forced to deal with the horror of being accosted by the commercials during the COMMERCIALS, in the last season they have taken to incorporating the commercialism right into the series itself… by making it seem like “Degree for men” is something that the scientists at Eureka are working on for the government.

The show itself is still a good show, but the whole commercialism part is something that kinda wears on me.  I understand that you need to have a sponsor for everything these days and most importantly for a program like this.  But at this rate, I cannot help but wonder what is next.

Will Adrian Monk start making it a common practice to tell his assistant, whatever her name is, that he needs to go take his, “ACME brand Lithium”, because it give him that warm and happy feeling.

Can we expect to see Rodney McKay take a moment to talk about the benefits of his HP scientific calculator or his Panasonic Tough-book?

How about Dr. Cox taking a moment to talk about why he should have used Trojan brand ribbed condoms before fooling around and getting his ex-wife pregnant?

Where does it end?  Will we, one day, see the Presidential State of the Union address start, and the pres will walk out with a jacket like the race car drivers wear, with logo’s for his sponsors on it?

How about laws?  Is there a potential for something like this:  You get pulled over.  The cop walks over to you and says… “I would like to let you that your left tail light is out, and your ticket is brought to you today by the fine folks over at ACME tail lights and electrical repair.”

Oh well… I am going off on a tangent here… If you get a chance, watch Eureka… it is a good show, but just be ready for the commercialism.

For a taste of what I am talking about, click here.

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2.5

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24
Sep

The Return of the Pin-Up

   Posted by: User ImageSWSamurai (About me.)

There has been a trend coming back around that I am actually liking.  It is the return of the “Pin-up” style of art and women’s clothing.

There are probably those of you out there that do not know what I am talking about, at least not with the term “pin-up”.  Though you have probably seen it several times, you just do not know what I am talking about.

“Pin-up” is a style of art that involves women that are scantily clad, at least by the standards of the 1940s and 1950s.  Art that adorned the noses of several hundred bombers over Europe and the pacific and in the pockets of the soldiers that fought the ground war.  Images that made women like Rita Hayworth and Bettie Page more famous to some soldiers than their movies did.

In fact, there appears to be a whole new class of this style of dress and photo-art that is making the rounds.  Some of it I like and some of it I am not so fond of, especially the ones with the women who are also sporting lots of tattoos.  That is not to say that they are not attractive, they are just not what I find attractive.

The new models that are making this style popular are people like:

Dayna DeLux

Heidi Van Horn - A few Tattoos, but still lovely

Bettina May

and

Amy - Again… a couple tattoos, but nothing overdone.

What really tickles me is that to this day, there are still people that consider this art a form of pornography or somehow ranks as smut.  I beg to differ, I think that the human body is a work of art.  These ladies do what they do because the have the bodies, as I am sure the minds, to do it and do it well.  They also show, through most of their work, that it is not what you DO see that can be a turn on, but what you cannot see and must be left to the imagination.

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3.2

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