In PC World of Advertising, Guys Last Fair Game

August 7th, 2006 9:52 PM

You've all seen the TV commercial. A chubby woman has dragged a TV onto her front lawn and is watching the game with two girlfriends, when her dutiful husband comes home, schlepping grocery bags. One of the girlfriends suggests they order in pizza, but the chubby woman actually calls her husband in the house, tricking her friends into thinking she's calling a pizza place. She haughtily orders her husband to 'make it the way I like it,' and adds 'make it snappy - chop, chop!'

You've never actually seen this commercial, of course. The dictates of political correctness would never permit it. But just such an ad for DiGiorno pizza did indeed air today [during the 4 PM EDT edition of the Tucker Carlson show on MSNBC] - the difference naturally being that it was a plump idiot of a husband acting like a complete jerk toward his wife.

This was immediately followed by an ad in which a guy puzzles over the home security system keypad. He calls out to his wife 'hon, did you change the code again?' She answers that the new code is their anniversary date. The husband is totally befuddled. He hesitatingly enters some numbers but, dummy that he is, gets it wrong, setting off the alarm. A female voice-over condescendingly sympathizes with the idiot: 'we know responsibility can be challenging enough.'

Again, try to imagine a gender reversal for this ad. NOW would be picketing by sundown. Just for the record, the ad was for Liberty Mutual insurance.

In the PC world of advertising, an extension of the MSM, guys are the last fair game.