Superbowl Round-Up, Gender Studies Style

First, clever Twitter responses to the ridiculous amount of sexism in this year’s Superbowl commercials. One of my favorites:
Posted By: denverlen (February 8, 2010 at 5:19 PM)
This was my fav tweet of the night. Saw a couple of others that were similar as well.
mrbilldempsey: Advertising works. Buying some misogyny first thing tomorrow.

(thanks to Erica for that one)

Weird Superbowl Ad indulges in outworn femme stereotype of a gay couple, but as an Advocate reader points out, in an oddly inclusive sort of way.

An hour of Superbowl watching with Gloria Steinem & Shelby Knox (okay, even I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t).

& As if to summarize, my friend Matty Wegehaupt wrote:
If there is any better evidence than the Super Bowl ads that popular American masculinity is in the throes of a pathetic death spiral, I haven’t seen it. The irony is that even while attacking women as withering harpies, the ads portray the men themselves as even more pathetic: illiterate boors who grunt defiantly at an “unfair” world, yearning for the nourishing respite of crap beer, fast cars, and fake boobs.

Geaux men! Honestly, I find the stereotypes of men in mainstream media horribly offensive – at least as offensive as those idiotic, sexist GoDaddy ads, which is one of the reasons I’ve been very surprised by how well Men of a Certain Age is written, and acted.