All it takes is one car commercial to run the red light of gender equity and you would think we'd gone back to the 1970's.

An interesting thing about teaching media studies is the diversity of opinions people can have over the same media text. Often it's never talked about and when it is, it can easily turn into an overly simple like/dislike or an elaborate personal review that deconstructs every gesture. Seeing ads on tv, in the movies, or on the streets makes knowing audiences' reactions a bit of a mystery -- unless those same ads are on YouTube or a blog with comments.

Let's look at this new Dodge Charger ad that aired during the Superbowl and has since racked up over a million YouTube hits. Based on my rough estimates, about 98% of the comments are somewhat supportive of the preferred message. But even the handful of critics are met with defensiveness, rather than curiosity:

• "I love how everyone is having a hissy fit about a commercial that was meant to be funny."
• "seriously why so much uproar over this commercial? its targeted towards people who buy the car ... men ... seriously how many women have you seen driving a muscle car? exactly ... and it isn't even sexist ... people take things way to serious in this country"
• "really just get over it, its just a funny commercial D:"

Enter Woman's Last Stand, the spoof ad:

Funny enough, a video with almost a quarter of the YouTube views (of course not counting all the Superbowl television viewers of the original) has almost a 1,000 more comments....and how do the comments compare?

• "and i will upload my video about how all men are complete slobs and rapists. what the_ hell is your problem?"
• "I will I will I will I will prove that all_ women complain about E V E R Y G O D D A M N T H I N G. Your no fucking prize either. Don't hate the player hate the game."

Reading the comments form a narrative and characterize the original ad as either cool beyond complaint or 'funny' depending on how uptight you are.

Does one need to be uptight to question why the original ad has an unstable-emotionally-numb-serial-killer (Michael C. Hall from Dexter) doing the voice over? Does one need to be uptight to point out the numbers of women who are killed every year by their husbands or boyfriends? If I was a woman watching the original ad I'd be creeped right the crap out.

Man's Last Stand not only reproduces another disturb-stereo-typical version of masculinity, but one that overflows with contempt for women and mutual relations between men and women. And why? Patriarchy has done such a great job of directing men's frustrations toward women and feminism, rather than the exploitive work, consumer, and macho systems that can easily be traced back to well-deserved anger and contempt. Even Fight Club made inroads in these directions. And I think our culture's misogyny is best displayed by asking: Why is it a joke when women are devalued, but not when men are? Basically, I'm paraphrasing from one of the Woman's Last Stand comments: 

• Ok so why is it when guys complain about unjusts in their lives it's funny? But when a woman does the exact same thing all of a sudden she's leisbian, b*&$ch, a stupid c*^t and everything in between? They say we can't take a joke, yet on every post I see in social media that empowers women I always see the same dumb comments from dimwitted men.

What I'm saying is let's look at video comments as extensions of the media text with an eye toward understanding how audiences make meaning. I'm also questioning the double standard that people use when making judgments about what is and isn't funny and how humour is both an excellent vehicle for exposing and hiding power and privilege. How many times have you heard something really offensive and when you bring it up you get "I was just joking"? Lastly, media texts like this one rely on the larger real-life context and conflict between men and women, otherwise there would be no story here -- for MASC or for Dodge.

Dodge's product in this ad is conflict, it's vehicle is contempt, and the road ahead divides men and woman. Charging forward yet rebelling backward, Dodge is marketing male sociability: hide behind your mask of normalcy (like Dexter) for most of your life and in return take whatever (asocial) pleasures you desire.

The Charger ad gets traction not through humour, but by fuelling itself on real (however misdirected) men's dissatisfaction with their lives. Only with a feeling of emptiness can Dodge and the millions of happy viewers stand up, while putting someone else down.  Just one more reason to ride a bike.

Are there any commercials (car or otherwise) that are creative, funny, and air men's gender dissatisfactions without running (or charging) over women?

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Paul works on the MASC blog and is increasingly interested in understanding how humour creates spaces for holistic education.