Australian advertising industry's depiction of men as dim-witted goofballs is anti-comedy, cringeworthy and dated
Chorus’ ‘New Zealand Runs On Fibre’ ad showcases a stream of benignly befuddled blokes interacting with tentative conviviality, the kind of men wider swathes of mainstream men go out of their way to avoid. For every redoubtable male stroking his freshly shaven jaw in a razor commercial, there are half-a-dozen goofballs - sexless prattling beta-males staring dim-wittedly as they receive some reproach or comeuppance.
Because of the male preference for STEM subjects, , and the prevailing attitude that if something doesn’t feature proportionate representation it must therefore suffer from a lack of representation, it is rare for men in advertising to be depicted solely as ideal archetypes in these fields. The irony here, though, is that men, in the main, are actually quite able to shrug off stuff and be wryly self-deprecating – up to a point.