As a high school soccer player, I shared a locker room with the football team. Apparently my choice of the world's most popular sport indicated that I and my fellow teammates were all homosexual. Huh? Not that I debated the point with the tight end, but I reckoned there was a distinctly homoerotic undertone to our tormentors' camaraderie (me thinks thou dost towel whip too much). And I've started to notice that truck advertising– always mucho macho– is wandering into the same hyper-male territory. I refer here to the glossy Silverado pimpatorial in September's Car and Driver. "If you're a man's man, you need to be driving a truck's truck." What does that make a Honda Ridegline, an F-150's bitch? I like functional tools as much as the next guy, but I'm beginning to think truck maker's might want to ease-off on the gravelly-voiced steroid approach. Or not. What's your take?
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You push the manly man stuff too far, you’re going to alienate all the guys who don’t wear Axe body spray.
Sadly, many of the guys actually driving the trucks are in ridiculous shape and probably couldn’t deadlift their own body weight. Trucks are “substitute muscle,” sort of like getting way too involved in spectator sports. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, buy big trucks for no reason and get in fistfights over kids’ football games.
If most trucks have fairly similar functional capacities (towing, payload, passenger space, braking under load, reliability, ride, etc.), then you would need something else to differentiate yourself from the competition, i.e. style. Of course, if you are lacking in both form and function, testicular appeal is pretty much all you have left. The guys who shout loudest usually have the most to prove.
You don’t see truck nuts hanging off of the back of Honda Ridgelines…
The only time I see more exposed testicles (both figurative and literal) than a Pride Parade is at a gathering of redneck truck-lovers.
Actually, if you include Truck Nuts, there’s probably more.
“The guys who shout loudest usually have the most to prove.”
And those young girls waving their little fingers at truckers aren’t trying to be cute.
My favorite ad was always the GMC spot that showed gargantuan CGI construction projects (bridges, stadiums, GM truck holding lots) while the voiceover intoned, “You might not be building the next great suspension bridge or football stadium, but your truck could be!” Then we see a manly man and his manly little boy watching the construction equipment in a manly way, and then they jump in their enormous GMC pickup and rumble away in a cloud of testosterone.
That’s the most honest truck ad I’ve ever seen.
Honda doesn’t “make ” a real truck.
So to begin with, the comparison is a bit off. Their “Real Time 4WD isn’t. It’s torque modulated and the vehicle really doesn’t have a frame. It’s a, c’mon, say it with me, “UNIBODY.” Like most cars.
Chrysler made one. I think it was called a “Rampage.”
not a real truck either.
As far as “testicular appeal,” what is the most sincere form of flattery?
Imitation.
Hond Avalanche.
You push the manly man stuff too far, you’re going to alienate all the guys who don’t wear Axe body spray.
I would argue that a truly manly man wouldn’t be caught dead using a “body spray” of any kind.
Sadly, many of the guys actually driving the trucks are in ridiculous shape and probably couldn’t deadlift their own body weight.
And you could say the same thing about “many” of the guys who drive Corvettes, Accords, minivans, and just about any other car.
Trucks are “substitute muscle,” sort of like getting way too involved in spectator sports.
Trucks really are a “substitute muscle” of sorts being that I don’t know any person capable of pulling 10,000 pounds around on their own.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, buy big trucks for no reason and get in fistfights over kids’ football games.
Do what? I have not seen many fistfights over kids’ football games, but I did see one over a Little League game one time. One “participant” drove off in a Dodge Caravan and the other in a Chevy Caprice.
Does that make those vehicles “substitute muscle”?
Honda doesn’t “make ” a real truck.
I know people who say the same thing about any truck without a 300+ hp diesel engine. They don’t consider any half-ton pickup a “real truck”.
If the Ridgeline does what you need it to do, then I would say that it’s as “real” as any other truck.
TexasAg03
Someone who actually tows 10k# need not make any excuses. It’s the 90% of the drivers who never use trucks to haul or tow much (if anything). It’s a fashion statement for too many.
I love trucks. They have a valuable place in society. Most people don’t need them. I won’t try to stop those people from buying them. But I will make jokes at their expense.
Trucks are great at what they do, i.e. for contractors, landscapers, builders,…
Some people sometimes need to tow.
Incidentally, the shape or “attitude” of the truck has nothing to do with its qualities as a workhorse. It’s therefore pretty straightforward to conclude that all uber machos designs and ads in trucks (and in sports cars, for that matter) coincide with a vague malaise, that of thinking that “a real man” (whatever the heck that means) needs “a real truck (whatever…you get the idea).
Texas ag makes a good point about the ridgeline: it’s all about needs, or it should be.
If, as a contractor, a minivan is more practical than a pick=up, then you should get one, and if your buddies laugh at you, they’re idiots.
The reverse is true as well, but the fact of the matter is that many people drive trucks because trucks are macho, something that ads emphasize ad nauseatum.
A Honda Ridgeline is all the, “truck,” most people need… if they need it at all. Look around, the proof is on the highway.
Trucks used to be rated on their capacity and ability to haul a full 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood. They never had any perception issues. they just did the job, what ever THAT was for it’s owner. That ‘owner” in that era was predominantly male. Sorry, it just was.
They collected garbage and stuff in the bed and were a staple of any outdoorsman, boater, and DIY person. Daily real work
Until every Urbanite thought they needed one. Then they got a rating of “How much, How big, and How Many.”
Now, if it can get you to the spa to get your men’s pedicure and massage, then, yeah, I guess you could say that it’s real.
Keepin it “Real….”
Toyota is the worse with the ridiculous swinging pendulums (steel girders?), slamming steel gates, hard acceleration up a hill with a trailer and even harder stops going down hill; all things the average pick-up driver encounters in a normal day. And while all of this is going on you have this good ole boy, who sounds like he has a load in his pants, groweling on about this truck.
I guess this is what Toyota thinks cinches the sale in America but I seriously doubt that it has a positive influence.
The Ford advertisements are almost as stupid with the swinging truck tethered on a chain attached to suspension bolts with a person standing beneath it or some other nonsense.
At least the old Dodge Ram, “Does that thing have a hemi?” ads were mildly entertaining. Those I believe probably helped sales but not these other absurdities.
It’s tough going, though. If your truck is too macho, then Texas HomeOwners Associations don’t want them in the driveways.
Approved vehicles:
Stonebriar HOA rules allow several luxury trucks on driveways, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Avalanche, Honda Ridgeline and Lincoln Mark LT
Not Approved: Ford F-150
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-friscopickups_17met.ART0.West.Edition1.4d8a269.html
Which kind of supports the argument. Cute trucks? No such thing.
Well, if you want an educated opinion: my orientation has never been a secret, and a lot of these truck ads are, you might say, a little too friendly in the showers, if you know what I mean. Fr’instance, I would not be overly surprised if one of these ads featured a guy in a Silverado blinking his high beams pulling into a truck stop at 3 in the morning.
Seriously, I don’t think they’re INTENTIONALLY homoerotic, but let’s put it this way: there’s only one group of people who is attracted to these brain-activity-optional, testosterone-soaked, let’s-punch-concrete-just-because-we’re-so-manly displays of machismo….and hint! it’s NOT women. ;)
At the very least, truck ads are the most guilty of hyper-manly borderline-homoeroticism, among the various vehicle types; as it happens, I can’t remember the last time I saw a minivan ad featuring one or more cowboys.
Please note: we’re talking about ADS here; I’m Not Saying Your Truck Is Gay…so save the commentary along those lines, thanks.
You’d be surprised the # of pickup owners in the suburbs who drive them solely to feel better about their manhood.
Here is the real truth.
Its the truth to why US manufacturers or in the fix they are today.
They catered to our stupid tastes.
First, we have always been an image society.
At my kid’s high school and now college, the boys are all driving pickups to be the cowboys they think they are while listening to country music…and rap???.
We stopped buying minivans and got into SVS. Although they couldn’t do what minivans did, they made us the social equals in the school/sports parking lots.
Sure, the SUV could tow…but we did that how often?
Once in 10 years, if ever.
Is there anything odder than a woman in an Excursion or Nisson Armada (what a weird name, historically speaking) driving alone in a food store parking lot?
Now we are all becoming crossover soccer families.
Even my own family is giving me shit about wanting a “sports” wagen with a stick.
It seems anybody driving a wagon is simply square and old and uncool.
Oh well, I am that.
And my hiked up plaid pants seem to go with my striped shirts now!
rpol35 :
Toyota is the worse with the ridiculous swinging pendulums (steel girders?), slamming steel gates, hard acceleration up a hill with a trailer and even harder stops going down hill;
…
The Ford advertisements are almost as stupid with the swinging truck tethered on a chain attached to suspension bolts with a person standing beneath it or some other nonsense.
These commercials both have the point of establishing the utility of the vehicles, and their toughness. The commercials target the heavy duty user and show that the vehicles have been engineered beyond spec. This is different from some subjective ‘man’s man’ or ‘man’s truck’.
Establishing the capability and durability of your truck in the public’s mindspace is not the same as chest thumping over bigger numbers.
Overcompensation is the root cause of many of the words ills. Personally, I don’t know why anyone would advertise their self esteem issues by chroming up their shiny urban assault truck. However, truck ads are also heavily stereotyping the average truck owner. There are a lot of working guys that have trucks and I would say that most of them regard it as a work vehicle rather then male enhancement. Maybe its time for the ad companies to come up with something new?
It sucks being a male in modern day. If you are in to “Manly” things, driving fast, trucks, rock and roll (of all sorts), red meat, beer, and good looking women, your over compensating for lack of something else and trying to hard to appear straight. If you don’t do any of the above, you are a flamer, “metrosexual” which has become the PC word for ghey, non man. Sigh. I can’t be a nice “sweet” boyfriend for my girl without being called a f*g, but I can’t enjoy mine or my friends’ fast cars cars or my buddies’ trucks without being called, well, a f*g.
Oh, and RF…at my high school, the soccer and football players got along quite well, really. It was the baseball players that were all “teh gheys”.
Hollywood based truck commercials “establish” nothing. I no more think that a swinging beam will beat the doors off any OTHER brand than believe in huge robot transformers are really coming from another planet.
For someone to believe that hyperbole in earnest, and base their purchase on it, well, they’re stupid and deserve to be fleeced. Often and repeatedly.
As far as looking at the roads to see what brand is more popular, I see more domestic trucks than Hondas.
And a “Metro” plays both sides of the danceline. Bluetooth in ear.
Just the facts Ma’am…
I find the sandpaper gritty narrating voice in truck ads annoying. I know a lot guys and some friends who drive trucks and sound nothing like they smoked Marlboros for 25 years; but still do “manly” thing like hunt and fish and etc etc etc. Methinks automakers are trying too hard to reinforce the manly truck image. As long as it hauls and does it right I could care less for beer swigging drywall nailing themed ads. Shame they put down other vehicles in the process like wagons too.
A Dodge commercial a while back reminds me of this kind of topic.
People worrying too much about what other people think of them… Worked with plenty of them.
I don’t care. Just be friendly, reasonably polite, work hard and play hard (at whatever you do be it ride a mountain bike, fish, or build cabinets).
I’ve thought about this kick-ass, man’s man attitude in the context of how people vote and how easily a politician, like W, can rouse us to go kick some ass in any country so impertinent as to question our god-given right to have our way anywhere and everywhere. The constantly obnoxious Toby Keith is exhibit A in my book. There are very significant differences in how men vs. women vote; typically men vote in greater percentages for republicans who are ‘strong on defense’. And I’ve wondered how the attitudes of these strong types will change as the US surely declines in power. Will we acquire humility or will our hurt pride make it even easier for demagogues to lead us into an even more disastrous mistake than Iraq has become. A good part of what brought Hitler to power was the humiliation of Germany after WWI and his ability to use oratory in place of common sense. Good thing W has never mastered the language.
I think a lot of truck ads probably are homoerotic. But only to those of the latent persuasion.
And now 7″ longer.
“Like a rock”
Wtf?
I think truck ads aren’t homoerotic enough.
Who cares?
There is nothing wrong with a guy wanting a truck. Although it’s politically incorrect these days (as many here demonstrate), most men like to be men as they enjoy big stuff that makes noise and is entertaining. Trucks are just that. It’s not that it makes a man, it’s just what they enjoy being a man.
That is unless a woman runs their life.
Just in my neighborhood there is a guy that looks like Bill Gates driving a Subaru with a bumper sticker on it that says, “Real Men Change Diapers.” OMG! I have never laughed so hard in my life! Sure it’s great that he’s willing to help out (for all of those of you that are going to defend it as it is a fine and honorable thing to do), but really, to put that on your car… even if it is a Subaru?! As Sam Kinison once joked, “She came right out and in the middle of the street and I had to give them to her.”
I never put much thought into whether a truck commercial is homoerotic. At some point you’ll have to ask yourselves why you think advertising that’s intended to appeal to a ‘manlier’ audience must always be associated with homoeroticism.
No, but truck owners are.
*cymbal clash*
Totally homo-erotic. And as a gay man (not even sure what ghey means) I find it quite humorous. Makes those ‘special advertising’ sections less annoying. I like the ads where the boys go camping in thier big manly trucks. I wonder if they share tent? Maybe if they used that sort of advertising with the Pontiac Aztek, they could have sold more with the tent package. Well, maybe they could have just sold more.
I like what Busbodger said.
Anyway, who cares what car makers do when they advertise? Why watch TV, anyhow?
There is an expression for a person who defines himself by his posessions: “dumb fool”. If you feel unmanly in a minivan, you need to grow a pair.
I wouldn’t say “homoerotic” but certainly they are indicative of the kind of adolescent hypermasculinity that masquerades as “manliness” in our culture (and often takes the form of self-appointed spokesmen for the Male Gender who solemly declare that “REAL men ________________ ” – fill in the blank with whatever the speaker decrees that REAL men either do or don’t do.)
We ought to be observant enough to realize that all passenger cars – whether a sports car or a luxury car or a hybrid or a truck or an SUV – are essentially marketed with some element of fantasy wish fulfillment. This car will make you sexy, that car will make you cool, this hybrid shows you to be a sensitive and caring individual, this truck makes you a tough guy – etc, etc.
The need to prove ones’ masculinity is more a comment on the state of “maleness” in our modern society (where there’s no sharp distinction between what constitutes a “man’s job” and a “woman’s job”) than it is about car marketing. All the car manufacturers are doing is taking advantage of the situation to sell their product.
Just like the makers of personal hygeine products have a vested interest in making us think that we are ugly and smelly without their products, the makers of trucks certainly aren’t shy about implying that without their cool vehicles, we aren’t “real” men, nor should they be.
Hey, they wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work.
davey49 :I think truck ads aren’t homoerotic enough.
And that’s the line of the day. +1
wait a minute. gotta grab some popcorn.
N85523 : You don’t see truck nuts hanging off of the back of Honda Ridgelines…
I did – I shit you not.
every single married closeted gay man i know has a 150 except for two, one who has a hemi charger, the other a mercedes suv, but he’s a little snobby and has a trophy wife.
Martin Albright :
I wouldn’t say “homoerotic” but certainly they are indicative of the kind of adolescent hypermasculinity that masquerades as “manliness” in our culture (and often takes the form of self-appointed spokesmen for the Male Gender who solemly declare that “REAL men ________________ ” – fill in the blank with whatever the speaker decrees that REAL men either do or don’t do.)
That reminds me of a time I was working backstage at a show, moving some equipment on stage. It was raining a few days prior so there was some mud near the edge of the stage. The forklift moving the mains (speakers) got stuck in said mud. After trying to push it out, I (at the time I was driving a Ford F150) got my truck and tried to pull it out. I stuck it into 4-lo and tried but I couldn’t pull out the fork lift, I just didn’t have enough weight on board. So, one of the other stage hands, a loud-mouthed macho moron, chuckled and said “you ain’t pullin’ anything out with that wimpy thing”. I said, “well, you have a better idea?” he went and got his truck – this lifted and modified F350 diesel with dual 6″ tips and monster tires. He hooks up and pulls the fork lift out with minimal hassle. He “climbs down” out of his truck, looks at me, looks at his truck, then looks back at me and says “That’s a real man’s truck” – I stand there for a second scratching my head in disbelief that he actually said that. As he’s nodding and admiring his rig, I reply with “So, why are YOU driving it?” – Everyone started busting up with laughter. He simply flipped me the bird and walked away in a huff. Needless to say, that took the wind out of his sails and he was quiet for the rest of the day.
Way to much soy being consumed here.
I agree with Martin Albright that it’s really a question of marketing and that all cars are marketed with some angle. Apparently the testosterone angle works when marketing trucks. I live in the deep South, and it’s part of the culture here. Some guys actually hunt, tow four-wheelers, build for a living, have a lawn care business etc. and need a truck. But like in other parts of the country, many suburbanites don’t, but they drive them anyway. They’d rather get 12-15 mph in their 4X4 and care what strangers think of them, even though strangers don’t really think of them, but to each his own!
SacredPimento,
I stand corrected, somewhat happily, I must add. I am not a fan of truck nuts, but I would have loved to see the looks on a driver of a too-large too-flashy too loud truck when he saw you rocking that particular accessory.
“That Honda ain’t no real truck!!!”
So props to you for challenging convention. I was in Alaska a few weeks ago where a number of big-tired bush planes are now sporting truck (plane?) nuts from the tailwheel leaf spring.
I guess it all boils down to insecurities, a need for belonging regarding consumption of products including trucks, beer, etc.
I ask, “Why would you want to try to impress somebody you don’t know or don’t like?” Buy what works for you; ignore the infantile advertising that exaggerates reality.
The reason Ford developed the HD series more balls.Subaru the Les-bo Package!Certain cars do carry stereotype branding.Same reason macho girls drive Jeeps.Must work look at the drivers!
A favorite bumper sticker sighted on a very sexy lady’s Civic Hybrid . . . . “nice big truck there, sorry about your penis”
http://www.bullsballs.com
I live north of that dealership by just 15 minutes. I hate going there… because they always push me into a truck, instead of the Prius I wanted to look at. My Audi isn’t manly enough.
GM Pulls Out
The ads show what a fashion statement trucks have been. The message is, if your a “man’s man” then this is what you should drive. It screams desperation.
The lowly Mullet followed the same path. In the early days it was known as “hockey hair” and worn by rugged individualists, like Gretzky. Times change though, and we’re now in the ridiculously over the top “Achy Breaky Heart” stage of truck marketing.
The exagerated masculinity themes in truck ads don’t strike me as any different than the image of sports cars enjoying the ‘freedom’ and fun of the open road.
Chances are most pick-ups will never be used in any way that challenges their specs., and most sports cars probally spend half their life at low idle on a jammed freeway doing commuter duty.
Our love affair with autos/trucks has never included a large dose of logic.
As for me…I love my pick-up. Use it mostly for going to work and the market, however if it should ever come to pass that I suddenly find it necessary to deliver some huge macho load of steel to a bridge constuction site…located up on a steep incline…count me in dammit…I’m ready.
Has anyone brought up the Traverse ad during the Olympic coverage? I’m pretty sure Richard Simmons directed the filming.