Manhood Checked.

For years I've held to the idea that that television is "soma for the masses." When I was a young boy, I'd taken to using white-out to write around the frame of the television screen quotes from 1984, cautionary statements, and other comments that berated television - as reminders of what we were viewing. It's hard to forget the excitable nature of programming for what it is when you see the phrase "I'M LYING TO YOU!" or “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” just to the left of the news-anchor's image.

Recently, I've witnessed quite a few advertisements playing these ideas in less subtle ways. Specifically, ads that wish to "buff" men up and get them in tune with being more masculine. Hardly new, the thought that ads play on base models of what's "cool" or "acceptable"; but didn't this come clear in the late '90s with the Chuck Palahnuik novel and subsequent film Fight Club? Well, it seems that the rest of the media is either slow to catch up, or making amends for thinking that by being showing his “sensitive male side” to the girl in third period English would help him score. To the ad groups: Lame try, morons.

David Sarasohn’s Sunday column in The Oregonian may have beaten me to the punch in print, but this topic has been on my mind for months since seeing Smilin’ Bob popping Enzyte on stations breaks from ESPN. It’s not just this summer, Dave.

Here’s a listing of currently running, MORONIC commercials created by plodding hacks failing to right the wrongs of their wasted male adolescence:

1. Hummer ad targeting the tofu & veggie eating man at the grocery check out “eclipsed” by the Neanderthal that has pounds of meat & ribs next to him. Upon seeing a magazine with a Hummer on it, he jets out and buys one to “restore the balance.” Of what? Lack of gas efficiency to healthy eating? I’ll bet the carnivore’s driving a Honda Insight before he dies of arteriosclerosis.

Message: Men, you can eat healthy, but make certain you drive a car that makes your penis seem bigger than it actually is. Screw the environment too.

2. Cialis, Levitra, Enzyte, and Viagra commercials. Nothing like getting a man thinking about his gonads to keep the money flowing into your company.

Message: You must remain capable to have sex at all times until you die. Otherwise you’re not a man.

3. Applebee’s or T.G.I. Friday’s. Those folks do a commercial where four guys call out in utter delight their entrees: “BEEF!” “PORK!” “RIBS!” then “VEGETABLE MEDLEY!”… pause… the last guy then corrects himself with “SAUSAGE!” to the back-slaps and laughter of the others.

Message: You’re not a guy unless you eat meat and like to keep other men happy by eating meat.

Men, be yourself. Pansy. Bold. Brawny. Old. We’re not idiots. So stop falling for gags like these commercials.