Fathers Get No Respect in TV Ads

Television is creating an image for American men that they don’t need or deserve. And it’s more than just an annoyance: It may imprint on younger viewers an image of their fathers as being what our children would call a dweeb . (“Dweeb” is defined by the current edition of the American Heritage Dictionary as either 1) a subservient person a flunky, or 2) a despised person. Origin unknown.

The advertising industry is the culprit. How often do we see an obviously low-kilowatt, hopelessly confused Dad unable to decide on a headache remedy, a cough syrup, a toothpaste--only to have his clearly smarter, take-charge wife solve his problem by providing the appropriate nostrum (i.e., the advertiser’s product) that he is too stupid to find for himself?

The answer is, “Every time we turn on the TV.”

These invidious parental roles shown in TV advertising were probably first dramatized in “Blondie,” the radio show, where Dagwood invariably had to be rescued by Blondie, his much smarter spouse, who patronizingly saved her stumblebum husband from the consequences of his idiotic schemes.

As a child, I hated “Blondie,” the radio show, for in my family it was Dad who cared for my mother through her various nervous disorders, selected and provided the food (including everything in the medicine cabinet) while nurturing our family and assuring us that everything would be all right.

On the other hand, I enjoyed “Blondie,” the cartoon strip, which continues in your comic pages and shows her husband, Dagwood, a funny character of many foibles, including the humongous sandwiches he prepared for late-night snacks. (“Dagwood,” as an entry in the American Heritage Dictionary, is defined as one of his fabled sandwiches, with its origin indicated as the comic strip “Blondie.”)

Certainly the motive of Madison Avenue in perpetuating these regrettable stereotypes of an inadequate husband and take-charge wife, is based on the presumption that the female adult member of the average American family selects all household products. Based on that dubious premise, it is to her that they fashion their blandishments, seeking to give her validation should she select their product as proof that she is smarter than her husband.

*

No matter that, in today’s society, the underlying premise may be wholly incorrect (statistically, in most households, both parents earn paychecks and share domestic chores, including shopping) and is long overdue for some field-testing re-examination.

Shades of Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown!

Meanwhile, the advertisers’ persistent stereotype of the father as being stupid and ineffectual, and the mother as being castrating and gender-bound to household chores bombards our children in commercial after commercial.

For me, these commercials raise the question: Is this how we want our children to perceive their fathers and their mothers? Perhaps even more important, is this how we want our children to see the consequences of the institution of marriage? An ineffectual father and a castrating mother? Psychologists have advised us that this is a dysfunctional family model.

It may seem to be a minor matter, but the message is both subliminal and relentless, and children may internalize that destructive myth without ever realizing that they are victims of Madison Avenue’s callous and irresponsible manipulations.