[2Wycked]

Watch the video.

This advertisement aired during the Super Bowl this year. It is a curious piece, as it shows rural living that barely even exists today, as less than 10% of Americans live in an area that can be construed as country (toss in small cities to get to 16%), much less rural areas where a farmer would necessarily have to live, surrounded by his fields.


Paul Harvey

The narration is done by the deceased Paul Harvey, which Slate tellingly noted was politically conservative. He originally gave the speech in 1978 but was based in part from a work in 1940 and 1949.

As noted by Slate, this narration was originally laid over a commercial for farms.com with new, un-doctored photos of current rural life in America back in 2011. Slate dismisses the Ram's ad as being a hack of the original, and yet, the Ram ad was supremely popular and has over 16 million views.

What exactly is this ad selling? Rams trucks? Nope, that isn't the point of the ad at all. Roughly around 52% of Americans live in the suburbs and the Superbowl is certainly a male-oriented event. Sure, women watch and throw parties and some ads target them, but the targeted demographic is men - men who want families or, most likely, already have them.

Ads like this are aspirational and I mean the men watching want to aspire to be the sorts of men who...want to be more.

Before I analyze the commercial, note the lack of complaints about gender-inclusion from the usual crowd. I don't doubt there were some grumbling from a few, but women do NOT want this fantasy. Even in fantasy land, aspiring to wake up at 4 AM to feed livestock and walk fields isn't appealing. Feminists are still women and play to women. You don't hear about the terrifyingly gendered world of plumbing or grave-digging - because women don't want to be there. Nothing aspirational OR easy about that. It is work, hard work and isn't glamorous - i.e. they can't self-aggrandize through their work. But, but, but...the tech industry! Google is so hot right now! UGH - why is it so male-dominated??? GOVERNMENT - pass a law!! We want to do...tech stuff! So many white males....it has to be easy because those hopelessly privileged white men are there. They have it so easy!

So, the logic goes, they (women) deserve to be there. I want you to think about that, these social justice types believe white men simply skate into industries like the tech industry because being a white male makes life so easy. If you want to talk about race or sex, slow your roll. People like this --mainly women -- *tell* themselves the people who have the jobs (in their mind = white men) have them not because of talent but because they simply got it...by being born (read: immutable, unchangeable) into the right group. They inherently undervalue their own abilities so they want to have jobs where they think talent and skill isn't relevant; in other words, they think they are inferior to white men, so they pretend what white men do doesn't come from hard labor or innate talent. They believe fundamentally in their own lack of talent and worth.

So, clearly, this ad is for white men, but white men who have never been on a farm, much less even understand most of what Harvey narratives about. Shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire? Fuck, who even uses horses on farms today?


What does this truck represent to you?

That isn't the point of the video; the narration of Harvey harkens back to a former era, an era where a man was self-made - to an extent. Work was tough, but it made life easier to deal with as there were was little existential terror over being anybody when said thoughts were usually secondary to mending your barn the next day or making sure you had enough food to feed your family.

What this ad sells is a fantasy to men: to be the man. Your families survival depends on your skill, hard work and dogged work ethic. In other words, the sort of man who will never do this in real life. The men who do these sorts of things in real life -- if they were watching the Super Bowl -- would have nary batted an eye except to say they could use a new truck. Brand-reinforcement, for those farmers who prefer Chevy's over Ford's, may happen for those men here. Clearly, that isn't the point.

Which is say, again, this ad is aspirational. Men aren't suddenly going to upend the family and move to Wyoming to tame the wilds of rural life. No, there is a good chance they are aspirational betas. Why actually get shredded and get into boxing or some similar? I think it was Nicholas Nassim Taleb who observed that men, nowadays, have muscles but no functional strength or fighting ability. Nowadays, aesthetically-pleasing muscles = masculinity and by that I mean wanting to be masculine. Muscles have become a proxy for masculinity in for men who don't want to be masculine. Slap some tattoos, preferably garbled Chinese words or wire fence, on those biceps and the image is complete. Maybe some facial hair -- but not a full beard -- but a carefully trimmed goatee or something.

In our narcissistic society, it is *all* branding. "I'm that sort of guy with big muscles, tats and facial hair." Really? What sort of guy is that? What media tells you about them? What sort of man let's society or media tell him what sort of person he should be? Are you the sort of guy who "love naps on rainy days and watching chick flicks while drinking wine with your girlies?" Haha, what?



Well, according to this Dodge Ram ad, they believe they can sell you on a version of that based on what you own. Who would that be? I already mentioned the men who want to be a self-made man with his family dependent on his abilities and the man who wants the trappings of masculinity. But, the last part of the video seals the aspiration - passing on your skill, lessons and masculinity onto your son. Ah, the next generation.

Men without kids watching this video could be thinking, "I'm going to be that man - passing on my skills, view of the world and religion to my son." After the game, while playing video games, "Sure, I don't go to church, but spirituality is very important to a father, I mean, passing it onto a kid - my son. Skills? I am going to be the father who repairs the cars, gutters on the family home and teach him lessons about life." He vows to learn to....cook better. Or something. Before this next summer starts. Certainly before marriage. Toss in car repair between now and then and....God, I hate lag on "Call of Duty!"

For the men with kids viewing this ad -- which is to say probably at least a big minority -- they are thinking about their legacy for their children. Men of the past had homesteads, sums of money or gave their sons many lessons about masculinity and taught them actual skills to use in life. These modern men don't have those. They aren't teaching their sons how to make an ax, walk a cornfield or mend a fucking horseshoe. They aren't teaching them anything, in fact. Those vaunted "equal" relationships with their wife have them distributing the workload: I mean they both work so much, have housework to deal with and all the trappings of an equal marriage, possibly second marriage. They aren't in their workshop teaching their son the family trade -- much less teaching them *anything* on Saturday afternoon! -- but they still need to feel a connection to their male heir-apparent.

Which is why we get these fetishized commercials. Buy a Dodge Ram, feel the connection to the men of the past and let your son climb on in. Preach to him some approved talking-points about masculinity or something, something to make you feel better as a father. See what is going on here? It isn't about the work, the family nor the children - much less a potential son. It is therapeutic - to remind the shrinking (beta) father he has relevance in his own family, he is passing on family approaches to being a man, he is a proactive and positive force in his son's life.

The increasing demands of women that emphasize the highly difficult nature of modern male/female relationships. Couple this with the emasculating forces of the public education system, wider media and absolute female power in divorce court? This does nothing but reinforce the divide between a man and his family, specifically his son. I would imagine there could be no greater feeling than knowing your son wants to follow in your path...but how can you want that if you are the average American man? Porn, video games & being a cubicle jockey in your youth? Middle-management, celibacy and porn in your middle age? A man could never be so proud.

I want to be like my father!

You mean the hen-pecked beta with a man cave, working for the man at a job he hates to pay the bills for things he doesn't need -- and neither does his wife -- but because she only shuts up if they buy that new couch?

This ad *is* aspirational because it sells a reality that they would love...to love to have. They won't ever get there, but they don't really believe that. They may have stray thoughts that they are little more than a cog in the machine that has greater concerns, but those die away when thinking: "I can buy that Ram truck." The Ram truck = the man they would love to be. Since they can't be the man the truck represents, they will wholeheartedly settle for symbols of that sort of man. Whew - being a man can be so tough!

This ad wasn't for everybody, however. Take a guess what part of the web didn't like the this video...but didn't know how to admit it?


Alexis Madrigal

Leave it to the left-wingers of the Internet to completely miss the message. Guess what they focused on? Race. A very concerned white person was aggrieved his "campesinos" were woefully underrepresented in the ad. Not ignored, but just the diversity ratio didn't reflect the reality of the world. Really? He says the ad was paying homage to the people who grow our food...wait, what??? Those poor, poor people! Whom will ever think of them!?



This ad clearly wasn't for him, as an ad for him would raise his consciousness about the plight of the Latino farmer or farm-worker. Some "very concerned" statistics, complete with a hoarse female Latina voice narrating over some overdone acoustic strings. It would end with a plea for money, or my favorite, raising consciousness about class and race in America or the currently fetishized Central American country X, which happens to have serious "human rights issues." Ever notice that "gender" issues of female employment and generalized "human rights" issues seem to be where the corporations (job-providers) are doing business? Gee, I wonder how cheap the labor is there?

As I have observed before many times, social justice left-wing types who truly understand power and society around them are rarely mainstream and certainly do not get big play on any site like DailyKos or Huffington Post. Madrigal needlessly injects race into a situation that revolves around masculinity, but not any way his ideology allows him to critique. He could, conceivably, complain about the rank patriarchy that pervades traditional values and rural areas, but that would be tough - race is much easier to complain about because it is visual and doesn't require any true understanding of anything beyond a quick Google search and not being color-blind.

I think men like him don't really understand what is being sold here. He would understand a masculinity tale if it involved a progressive couple with a stay-at-home father or something like that. Men like him don't understand that masculinity involves far more than complaining - it involves transcending your reality - or attempting to. Men like Madrigal hate change and simply desire to flip perceived power hierarchies (look, the wife is the breadwinner and the male stays at home!) or simply "raises awareness" - I constructed a counter-narrative to the whitewashing of this Super Bowl ad!

In the end, it still is about them, but in a progressive context that either highlights their gender/racial/whatever awareness. Ugh, those men who still want to want to be men - how regressive! Did I mention I made a YouTube video about the plight of half-Latino soybean harvesters in southwest Utah? I think my co-parent will be proud when I show her after she gets back to the homestead from her salary-job. Did I mention I am a good father?

The original ad is selling an image of masculinity that no longer exists at large, but many men with poor self-image -- who aspire to be more -- cling to in order to feel like a man. You can use quasi-traditional approaches to masculinity or more left-wing ones, but at the end of the day, the problem is the lack of identity for the modern man.

So did God make a farmer...or did man make a beta?

[It_is_my_time]

Excellent post.

[soup]

Farmers are necessary, and we evolved with them.

Pretty soon, robots will take over all that.

There will also be robo-women for men who have given up (like Japan's herbivore men).

[Lights]

Can tell you are THeLastPsychiatrist reader. Nice.

[not_dead_yet]

(11-12-2013 01:27 PM)Lights Wrote:  

Can tell you are THeLastPsychiatrist reader. Nice.

Concur. I appreciate all the work you put into your posts 2W, but it wouldn't hurt to include a link to TLP's original post: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/r...innes.html

TLP is frighteningly brilliant, and a true "red pill" thinker.