] kac [ weblog ]

So, it seems the men of America are being "whipped" into remission. A new spate of ads have featured men defending different inherit facets of their manliness. Burger King has a new "Manthem" where adult boys proclaim their right to hate salads and quiche and prefer double cheeseburgers. Miller Lite presently has a campaign where men of various background, vocation and celebrity decide on and "write" new "Man Laws" (it seems the viewers are only witness to the beer-related sessions, although one of the new laws--"You poke it, you own it"--invites further interpretative scrutiny). And a recent Applebee's TV ad has three "meat-loving" guys giving scornful leers at a fourth's voiced appreciation for a "vegetable medley."

What has happened that guys feel a sudden need to defend behavior commonly ascribed to their sex for some, um, 65,000 years or so? What is this threat to their manhood and where did it come from?

HE HEALTH COMMUNITY HAS been reporting for the last few years on the exponentially growing bad health of our nation's citizens. We have the fattest children in the world! Now, I know chickens don't have "fingers", and although I'd rather not speculate on what part of the bird the "nuggets" are, all's I know is that the people at KFC, though, do have a huge pair of them!

I've recently been seeing this KFC ad for something called a "chicken bowl" (pictured, right), which consists of mashed potato, corn, fried chicken pieces, gravy and cheddar cheese. It's as if they are trying to reward the folks who are tired of being told how to better themselves. "Screw exercise! Stop trying to live a long life and make your mouth happy now!"

Domino's has their XLP, Extra Large Pizza. Taco Bell wraps a doughy shell around grated cheese around a taco around a chipotle cheese sauce around asade steak while promising to make you full. Burger King and McDonald's can put bacon, sausage, egg, cheese and pancakes or french toast in just one of your hands. A person could easily consume twice the daily recommended allowance of calories from processed and chemically tainted foods and do it for about 5 bucks. Why, one might ask, would these companies not care about the scrutiny, the concern, the fears of the health-caring public?

If we already have hi-fi and low-fi, shouldn't it only follow that we have in-fi? Standing, of course, for "infidelity", in-fi seemed to be NBC's season finale theme-of-the-week this week, representative, philosophically, of today's culture.

On both The Office and Las Vegas last episodes of the season, a lead female character who claims to be happily engaged sucked face with men other than their intended. One just hours before the wedding ceremony. This romantic conflict is supposed to come off as highly romantic, appealing to a female audience who would sympathize with the ladies' unfortunate position.

Being a guy myself, however, I couldn't help but think the if the situation were reversed, and the grrom-to-be was the one who had the indescretion, female viewers would not only not sympathize, they would be offended and/or insulted, possibly taking out their fustrations from a fictional story on their real-life significant others.

So why the double standard? Is romantic doubt so common in women that seeing it in other women offers some kind comfort in identifying with it or validating it? I can identify with a guy's yearning for a girl who is already attached, and this kind of scenario offers every heartbroken bloke hope. But I can't see anything positive about being in a situation where one of two people you care about very much is going to be deeply hurt.

Many of my friends who have compalined that I have been MIA for much of the past 3 months would love for me to provide a day-by-day synopsis of my comings and goings.

Although it seems I am obviously one of the very few people with blogs who doesn't feel a need to divulge the details of my thoughts, feelings and opinions, I am definitely not above sharing any interesting insights I may have had that day.

Of course, I can't think of anything amusing that happened today, When I do have such epiphanies, I will be sure to post them at the earliest, convenient time on my blog....

So, there...!