Manly men...

"Manly men, doing manly things, in a manly way!"

There's a Hummer ad in short rotation right now. The scene is a grocery store checkout line. Guy Number One is waiting for the clerk to ring up his tofu, bean sprouts, and organic soy burgers when Guy Number Two arrives and starts piling up steaks and ribs on the conveyor belt. Guy One feels belittled and frustrated, obviously not as masculine as Guy Two.

But wait! Salvation is at hand! There's a print ad for a new Hummer conveniently located next to the cash register. Guy Number One sees it and realizes he can reclaim his masculinity. He rushes from the store to the car dealer and purchases a brand new Hummer! Now he's a man! He secures his future as a procreator and obviously superior contributor to the human gene pool.

It's ridiculous, but I have to assume these ads actually sell vehicles, otherwise they'd never be seen. The connection between masculinity and the kind of vehicle one drives strikes me as tenuous, at best. This is all about self-image, and if we're to believe that a more manly man drives a Hummer, couldn't he get the same effect with the equally well-touted Enzyte? If a guy is dumb enough to believe this crap, maybe some Enzyte will make him taller.

Does anyone really need to drive a quasi-military vehicle to the grocery store?

A big chunk of our manufacturing is devoted to building and selling enormous, wasteful vehicles to people who believe that they'll be more sexually attractive if they're seen driving one. Such is the power of advertising. In order to support that huge manufacturing effort, we require cheap fuel.

We're devoting extensive financial resources and untold lives in order to maintain cheap oil prices. In effect, we're trading the lives of American servicemen to enhance some short, pudgy, bald guy's chances of getting laid. In reality, we're giving him just the illusion that he'll get laid. Maybe the world would be a better place if sexually repressed American men, doubtful of their ability to attract a member of the opposite sex, could get cheap porn as a substitute for an expensive vehicle and all the energy that vehicle requires. Maybe if we provided free Viagra and Enzyte to anyone who asked, we wouldn't need to spend American lives and dollars propping up unpopular regimes simply because they sit atop a big pool of oil.

So instead of a big gas-hole vehicle, perhaps Guy Number One could take his free daily dose of Enzyte and be secure in the knowledge that he's a proud, upstanding member of society, free to eat tofu and bean sprouts if he desires. And he probably doesn't really need a hummer. Yes, he'll be livin' large and life will be lookin' up, up, up! Guy Number One will be thinking big!

I've seen too many of those damned Enzyte ads!