Honda Pilot ad: "My husband was raised by wolves"

[mens_issues]

Honda has an annoying ad for its Pilot SUV where a wife states
that "My husband was raised by wolves." The first time I saw this
was on Super Bowl Sunday (the day of the infamous Janet Jackson
incident at half-time). It showed the husband looking all
dishevelled while licking a plate like a dog, drinking straight from
the water cooler at work, and chasing a Frisbee (thrown by his son)
into a stream.

I hate this nonsense! They can expect a letter from me about where
I'll buy my next car (unless there is an apology and a retraction of
the ad in which case I might reconsider).

To contact Honda, try this:

By Phone:
At our toll-free number: (800) 999-1009

By Fax:
(310) 783-3023 (24 Hours)

By Mail:
American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Honda Automobile Customer Service
1919 Torrance Boulevard
Mail Stop: 500 - 2N - 7D
Torrance, CA 90501-2746

"Our business hours are Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 5:00
p.m., Pacific Time."


Note: No email address was provided

Their site is:

http://www.hondacars.com

Steve

[mens_issues]

It took awhile, but I received a letter of apology from Rubin Postaer and Associates regarding the Honda Pilot ad "Wolves" (the one where the wife says her husband was raised by wolves and he acts like one).  Rubin Postaer is American Honda's advertising agency.  

The letter is as follows:


"August 13, 2004

Dear Mr. Van Valkenburg:

We thank you for your letter.  We apologize and do not intend to offfend anyone when creating a Honda advertisement.  The Honda Pilot ad, "Wolves," will not be running in the future.  We have created new advertisements for the Pilot in 2005.

Rubin Postaer and Associates is American Honca Motor Company's advertising agency, and we appreciate your feedback.  We take these coments seriously, and work with American Honda Motor Co. to properly handle these situations.

Again, we apologize for offending you with our advertisement.

Sincerely,

Chuck Valentine
S.V.P., Honda Account Director

Rubin Postaer and Associates
2525 Colorado Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(310) 394-4000
www.rpa.com"

Thanks to all of you who also wrote a letter of complaint to Honda about the Pilot commercial.

Steve

[dr e]

Great job Steve!  I wish other companies were as responsive.  If enough of us write it lets them know that there are growing numbers who are watching for this kind of crap.

E

[D]

What I would like to know is 'why'?

Why do companies, especially large companies like Honda do ads like these ones?

Why do they feel that they reach an audience in perticular with this type of ad?

So if anyone is writing maybe they can ask that question.

My belief is that the ad itself is targetted to a certain group, and since it was shown at superbowl for the first time my assumption is that the target audience is/was men in perticular.

So if so, do men, maybe even just some men, perhaps the types of men who watch superbowl, identify with this ad?

If so is it really that bad and demeaning of men in general or is it just goodhearted fun?

My personal opinion of the comercial is that it reinforces the ignorant male syndrome.  I don't believe it has anything to do with women or feminism but rather consumerism.  Keeping the masses dumb and controlable by making ignorance admirable among that group.

But all in all, just by itself,without the subliminal message I don't think the comercial was all that bad and kind of cute.

[dr e]

Just reverse the genders and it will give you a bit of an idea of the misandry involved.  Would a commercial run with the woman doing those things?  Very doubtful, the women would complain immediately.  

This commercial shows the "empowered woman" who must tolerate the savage male and shows the male being primitive and crude.  So we get the superiority of women along with the misandry of portraying men as less than human and in essence disposable.  He was more or less a pet.  She was the master.

[D]

Okay, then back to my original question: 'why'?

What is the reason for depicting the roles in this manner?  

I see your lense and your version is somewhat subjective, but I agree in the fact that ad companies do not just 'do' things randomly.  

Let's take a commercial from the product line 'flex' I believe it's called.  The product is body cologne and in the comercials women are reduced to nymphos when they come across a man wearing this body cologne.  

The majority of the men are geeks in their comercials and every woman is a gorgeous sexual tigress jumping his bones.   Is this degrading to women?  With your arguement we could say , no, this empowers women sexually, she is the initiator.  With the feminists they could no doubt find some flaw of objectivity or objectification of women they are being oppressed and reduced to mere sex objects blah blah blah ad nauseum.

But......,but what about the 'real' intent of the concept artist who did the comercials?  Was he/she being goofy in the Honda comercial and say, "Hey, the type of guy who watches football will be drunk with about at least a dozen friends or at a bar room full of sports fans, eating chicken wings and nachos will see this guy on a comercial, a guy a lot like himself, married with kids racked with responsibility of being a dad and identify with him.  He will be relieved in his momemtary bliss of none responsibility freedom in the wild with wolves, a pack animal by the way."

Is it misandry?  I personally consider misandry to be something that is marketted to a specific group that insites that group to despise another group.  A comercial like 'Aero' chocolate bar.  Where two women are standing together enjoying a chocolate bar with sexual overtonnes most likely lesbian, scoff and redicule a weaker male.  The comercial is targetted at women and designed to group women together in common bonding at hating men specifically, while enjoying a candy bar.  This exact type of ad was used (or formula for an ad) to promote ciggerette smoking among women.  'You've come along way baby',

But why would a company alienate its target audience by demeaning them?  I find it highly unlikely that it was their intention to do so.

[dr e]

Dan - I think your initial assumption that men are the target audience is incorrect.  Why would the ad companies spend millions of dollars trying to influence a segment of the population that has LESS control over expenditure of monies.  It has been shown that women are in fact the ones holding the purse strings and any ad agency is aware of this and will point their ad towards making an attempt to persuade women.  They also know that a part of persauading women is to make men look stupid.  My own guess is this is calculated to try to boost the self-esteem of the ladies by making men look like buffoons.  Go figure.

If this sort of commercial were infrequent or if other groups were treated  equally I might have a different view of this.  However, it is men who are portrayed as animals, it is men who are portrayed as idiots in need of a woman to make their decisions, it is men who are shown to be incompetant in caring for babies, it is men who are shown being injured by kicks, slaps, dog bites etc.  We could go on and on but the sad fact is that the only group that is consistently portrayed in such a negative manner is men.  Think for a minute what the response might be if the only group that was mistreated in a similar manner was Muslims.  Would you think that was funny?  Or maybe Blacks.  Would you think that was funny?  Of course not.

The sad fact is that men have been conditioned (yes, pavlovian) to not see this sort of thing as a problem or worse yet, to see it as funny or cute.  Men want to be seen as tough and powerful and to complain would ruin that chivalrous image.  The ad agencies rely on this brainwashing and chivalry because without it they would be unable to get away with such misandry.  They know that men won't complain and therefore they can slip misandrist ads into the airwaves in order to impact women at the expense of men.  We need to have our men wake up and see that they are being consistently portrayed in the media and commercials in a hateful manner and to start standing up to this crap.  Steve did this.  He has broken through the brainwashing.

[mr niceguy]

I think that this sort of lampooning of men and women, even when it includes stereotyped images, is meant to be good-natured fun and should not be taken quite so seriously. Men and women get along much better when they can laugh not only at each other but at themselves. Everyone knows that men don't really think they're in the dog family, just as everyone knows that women don't really get orgasmic over shampoo and that a dozen gorgeous women --- no matter how dumb they are --- will not throw themselves at a guy just because he's drinking Mountain Dew. Ads are usually not meant to cater to misandry or misogyny but rather to harmless fantasy.

I've read enough of the former Ms. boards and this one to see the hyperbole that predominates in both places. They say, "If that had been a man, it never would have aired," or "If it had been a black person instead of a woman being depicted in that way, can you imagine the outcry?," or "We've become conditioned by the patriarchy to accept this kind of crap." Every day I see the same victimology over here that I saw there: "If that had been a woman... a black person... can you imagine...?... We're being brainwashed...etc." In a way, you're both right, but since you're both right, you're both wrong too. I respectfully recommend that everybody lighten up a bit.

[dr e]

Mr Niceguy, I think your brainwashing is showing.   :mrgreen:  I suggest you read a book called "Spreading Misandry" and then get back to us.

[D]

Well Dr. Evil, that very book Spreading Misandry could very well be a brainwashing tool?  Who knows.

I've read the book, I own a copy and I know where you're coming from.

But you have to realize one thing, the comercial was aired at superbowl time, saying that they spent milions of dollars to target women watching the superbowl is simply bad marketting.

However, with that said, I will go onto things you might agree with. And as you know, nobody spouts the brainwashing theory more than I do, Dr.  

You may have answered my question 'why?'  Why did they make this comercial?  You say they were targetting women, I say they were targetting men.  You say they were aiming to make men look like bafoons, I say I don't know what they were trying to do but I do believe there is method to their madness.

Your claim is that women make the money decisions in the family,  so I'll stick with that for a moment.  What if the comercial was directed at men but its disign was to condition men into submissivness?  Men watch this comercial and identify with this 'Homer Simpson' wanna be.  He is basically a child, totally dependant on his wife for the descisions in the home, the desision to buy the family vehicle in fact.  This comercial is culture forming, it is designed to train men to be submissive to the wife's brilliant ideas.  Her brilliant idea of course is to buy a Honda van.  

So we can expand our definition of Misandry in the fact that comercials making men look dumb targetted to women are one approach.  Also comercials training men to be dumb targetted to men is another approach, the MRA's should consider.

However, Mr. Niceguy could very well have a great point, fantasy certainly is a great eye catcher.

We can not assume simply the formula of Misandry with advertisers,  I would like to ask them why?  Why did they make a comercial this way?
How can we know for sure when their are so many possibilities?

[dr e]

Dan, do you really think that Spreading Misandry was brainwashing?  I'd be curious to hear if you think that.  One of my criticisms of the book was that it was a bit too academic and research oriented and lacked a certain friendliness.

Are you saying that you think the Super Bowl ads are pointed solely towards men?  I would have to disagree there.  The Super Bowl provides advertisers with one of the years biggest markets.  I think the last one was watched by over 160 million.  Women are not a small portion of that group.  How many women do you know who talked about the Janet Jackson wardrobe episode?  They are watching...maybe not the game so much but they are watching.  Advertisers know this.

[D]

Dan, do you really think that Spreading Misandry was brainwashing?  I'd be curious to hear if you think that.  One of my criticisms of the book was that it was a bit too academic and research oriented and lacked a certain friendliness.

I'm saying that the book creates a perticular lense in which to veiw the media.  Which is what brainwashing fundementally is.  It doesn't mean what they are saying isn't true, but, you have to use the formula correctly or  your assumption can be flawed.  

In this case I am not saying your assumption is flawed, I am merely asking a bigger question that is "Why?"  Why did the advertiser do the comercial this way.  And why did they show it specifically at a time when the majority of viewers will be male?  

Are you saying that you think the Super Bowl ads are pointed solely towards men?  I would have to disagree there.  The Super Bowl provides advertisers with one of the years biggest markets.  I think the last one was watched by over 160 million.  Women are not a small portion of that group.  How many women do you know who talked about the Janet Jackson wardrobe episode?  They are watching...maybe not the game so much but they are watching.  Advertisers know this.

I'm saying that the majority of veiwers would be male.  Why wouldn't they direct most of their ads towards men?

Every single newspaper and newscast talked about JanetGate.  It was hard to get away from.

If they're not watching the game, what makes you think they are watching the ads?

Though I'm not entirely dissagreeing with you , Doctor,  what I am trying to do is see the bigger picture.  And perhaps another possibility in Misandry in the media.  

You say that men are made to look like bafoons.  I agree, but I go one step further, I say that men are conditioned to be bafoons as well, and that this comercial may be doing just that.  In order to do that they must target men as an audience, and honestly ads on sports are targetted to men most likely.  And why is it not a possibility, in fact it makes perfect sense.  

But wouldn't we have to get some proof?  I mean it could be very well just as the other poster stated, that these ads are just good hearted jabs at family life.  

How would we know for sure unless we spoke to the creator of the ad himself?  Would he admit that he was using such a philosophy in marketting, is he intentially just following a trend, is he a part of the New World Order conspiracy, will he just say "This is what works best in ads"?

Do we really know until we do some research, investigation?

I say this because I do not believe that car companies or advertisers care any more about men than they do women or vice versa.  I believe they only care about the bottom line.  So I agree that these powerful companies create a culture based on the theory that women spend more money than men and that works to their advantage.  But do they like women more than men?  No, they are just able to manipulate them easier because of their nature.[/i]

[dr e]

It's not even that women are more easily manipulated, it is simply that they spend the money.  The ads need to address those who spend the money.  It's not unlike the book industry.  There are far more books about feminism and women's studies than there are about men and men's studies.  Why is that?  The answer is very simple.  Women buy books, men don't.  If more men bought books and the demand for books on men's studies was higher they would carry more books on men's studies.

My sense is that the anti-male ads are not some conspiracy in the least, they are trying to catch the attention of women and "stroke them" to feel better by showing how stupid men are and then by comparison they must be so much better.

I suppose you could call just about anything brainwashing if you wanted to.  I think the motive is important here along with the content.  I can see how someone might label the "Spreading Misandry" as brainwashing particiularly if they were a feminist.  I just don't see it like that in the least.

[D]

That's because you don't understand what brainwashing really is.

The book sets forth a "formula" in order to see what Misandry is.  That formula creates a lense in which to view this matarial.  The formula gives us things to look for so that we can add up the counts of Misandry to decide if it's indeed Misandry.  

By calling it brainwashing it doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing.  But I will for sake  of arguement just refer to it as 'the lense' in which to view media.  

Yes, women do make the most buys, but, men also have to be conditioned to accept women as the money owner.  

I remeber quite distinctly a movie with John Ritter.  His wife was in the movie playing his wife.  What happened in a perticular seen was his wife asked for some money and he pulled out something like 50 bucks, but she grabbed the whole amount lets say 400 bucks.  Then we hear canned laughter.  This canned laughter tells us that the scene was funny, but the subliminal message was that men should fork over their cash to the female so she can go on a shopping spree.  

I've seen other scenarios just like it.  Man gives over cash, if he refuses she becomes very hostile and physically threatening.  The man becomes weak and cowers and hands over the money.  This type of conditioning is perfect for both men and women by design.  It is scripted this way for a reason, and  the scenareo is repetitive in many movies, sit coms, comercials etc.....  It conditions men to take it, it conditions women to think it's their right and if they don't get the money they are allowed to become violent.  Society believes it's okay and acceptable.  It ratifies how we interact with eachother even if in comedy.  We watch tv and think it's real life.  But both sexes are being conditioned.  

Now why are these scenes so repetitive in movies?  Does this explain VAWA?  Is it capitalism out to get us?

[FP]

Meh. If I remember the ad right it wasn't that offensive. I certainly didn't take it as "men are dogs/wolves" whatever. It was just a dumb attempt at humor to sell a minivan. Didn't subway or quiznos have an ad where one guy was raised by wolves?

Anyway, I've seen worse things than that honda ad. Pennys or Mervryns typically has their yearly "mom goes to the early sale and doofus dad can't keep the kids under control" ad.