Daddy Cant Do Anything: Representations of the Patriarch in Advertising
There is an advertisement for Tim Hortons, the famous Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, circulating on the radio that follows a common premise in contemporary advertising. A husband has evidently forgotten his anniversary, and presents his wife with a pumpkin spice doughnut (the seasonal Tim Hortons product for autumn) and a coffee. After an impromptu off-key rhyming song and ridiculous analogy about their relationship and the doughnut, the husband cuts off his wifes burgeoning tirade with the hopeful statement that he considers this gesture the most romantic thing he has ever done for her. Cue the standard Tim Hortons pitch for the products featured in the advertisement.
Its fitting and even expected that Tim Hortons, one of the most ubiquitous cultural touchstones in Canada, employs an equally ubiquitous cultural discourse in its advertising. The bumbling, oafish patriarch has a few variations throughout advertising media, but the message is invariably the same: That the patriarch is saved only by the matriarch and is delivered from ignorance, boorishness and idiocy by her sophistication, common sense and patience with the inferior man. There are countless examples of this discourse played out through commercial advertisement in all media, and it serves to create a myth of the patriarch as impotent and helpless without a woman to fix his problems.
For decades, the idea of the patriarchy as the dominant force in gender relations was an integral notion in gender studies. Evidently, this has since sharply eroded, at least insofar as advertising is concerned. Roland Barthes, in his seminal work, Mythologies, discusses this process in detail,
To instill into the Established Order the complacent portrayal of its drawbacks has nowadays become a paradoxical but incontrovertible means of exalting it. Here is the pattern of this new-style demonstration: take the established value which you want to restore or develop, and first lavishly display its pettiness, the injustices which it produces, the vexations to which it gives rise, and plunge it into natural imperfection; then, at the last moment, save it in spite of, or rather by the heavy curse of its blemishes (Barthes, 1957)
Essentially, contemporary advertising has taken the image of the patriarchy and used this process to invert its mythic signification. The mythic patriarch is exposed as utterly flawed and helpless, and then at the advertisements climax, the matriarch saves the patriarch with grace and humility, thus rendering the patriarch dependant for support and care.
Semiologically, one can use Barthes's two orders of mythic semiology to trace the creation of this patriarch. The first order begins with the signifier, the patriarch, and the signified, inadequacy. Through the demonstration of the patriarchs failings, the inadequate patriarch is created. After this fall, the matriarch is brought in to fix and educate the patriarch on his mistakes. This brings forth the semiotic myth that the matriarch is necessary to support the patriarch and save him for his own shortcomings. This myth is then proliferated through myriad examples from cleaning products to child care to the ubiquitous Tim Hortons.
The proliferation of this myth is about far more than just the content and frequency of the advertisements, it has to do with the medium itself. Marshall McLuhan, in his paper The Medium Is The Message speaks to the importance of the media and its impact on the message that consumers receive. In this case, the vehicle for the message is an advertisement. Regardless if its in a film, on television or on the radio, the advertisement is subliminal by design. It is created to consciously implant ideas in the human unconscious. Usually, these ideas centre around the purchase and necessity of a new product. But in this subliminal advertising, more than just the product and its features is transmitted. Because the entire medium is designed to be subconscious, everything in the message is transmitted. This includes any discourses that may be employed in the advertisement. As the mythic helpless patriarch that requires a matriarch to function gained traction in advertisements, it became engrained in contemporary gender discourse in popular culture. The stereotype has branched out slightly, into other media such as the situation comedy, but has enjoyed a predominant presence in advertising. The medium certainly is the message in this case, as the subliminal nature of the advertisement has inadvertently proliferated the contemporary patriarch sign to the point that it is almost guaranteed in any advertisement which features a dual sex gender dynamic.
Everything has the capacity to be mythic in nature, but the scope and acceptance of a given myth is wildly varied. Conspiracy theorists endure widespread ridicule for their beliefs in certain myths, while whole populations accept and endorse myths when they are presented by their leaders. This particular part of the gender studies discourse, the portrayal of the patriarch in modern advertising, is in a unique position which has allowed it to gain enough clout in our cultural mythos that it has seriously shifted the overall portrayal of the patriarchy in popular culture. From advertisement, the notion of this bumbling patriarch has spread across all media and is liberally portrayed in various television shows and films. How has it accomplished this? I posit advertising as the centre of this paradigm shift in gender representation in popular culture because of the sheer volume of advertisement in the world, the near-universal adoption of the mythic patriarch in these advertisements, and the subliminal nature of the advertisement which lets it ingrain and spread throughout the landscape of popular culture. All of this has occurred and continues to occur from something as simple as a radio advertisement about a doughnut and coffee.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. 1957.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: Signet, 1964.