By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Apparently I am remiss in my duties as a young American male.

Here it is just past noon on an uneventful weekday and I haven't yet passed gas in a crowded elevator, broken furniture in celebration of a meaningless line drive, carried out an elaborate scheme to steal someone else's beer, or indulged in a protracted fantasy about Swedish twins.

I haven't high-fived anyone. I haven't watched any porn. I might even be wearing fresh underwear.

What am I, gay?

I suppose that's the only reasonable explanation. Our new "Yo, politically correct this!" men's movement tells me so.

There must be something wrong with me. Scat jokes make me nauseated. I've never seen a Vin Diesel movie. I think double-D cups are scary. By our new pop culture standards, I'm either a four-eyed, wedgie-inviting dork (Lasik notwithstanding) or gay.

Honestly, I don't know what else to think. Beer commercials, Spike TV, lad mags, "The Man Show" and Jimmy Kimmel's body of work have proposed the 21st century American male archetype as an unapologetic amalgamation of every disparagement ever directed at our gender: weak-willed, unaware, lazy, horny and fatally self-absorbed.

Granted, taking gender identity cues from beer commercials is sort of like tuning in to Jerry Springer for pointers on parenting or gleaning lessons on cultural awareness from Fox News. You're better off confused.

Maybe what is so irksome about the "guys-will-be-guys" brand of marketing and programming is that it's nothing more than a bratty response to, what, political correctness? Neo-feminism? Oprah?

Miller Lite's infamous "Catfight" commercial — in which two guys take the old "tastes great, less filling" debate and escalate it into a wrestling match between two beautiful women — is the most obvious example. The first version of the commercial ends with the guys giggling like idiots and their dates shaking their heads with disapproval. This isn't parody, as the Miller folks claim; it's a lightweight ad positing what it not-so-subliminally preaches: "Men are pigs. Oh well!"

In the follow-up, one of the dates rewrites the fantasy, so that one of the guys is pinned down by a fat, hairy man. Progress? Not unless you consider the movement from chauvinist joke to homophobe joke a substantive leap.

The new guy-oriented TV programming isn't much better. Take "Stripperella," and "The Man Show" — please. They shoot for parody and hit nothing but the broadside of the 13-year-old male id.

It's probably no coincidence that marketers and programmers are pushing this sort of chaff at the same time that programming for women is finally evolving beyond "Sex in the City" and Lifetime's Nancy McKeon movie of the week. There's money to be had in selling guys the notion that never growing up is a political statement, that self-gratification is a virtue.

Hey, I've got an idea. Why not start a new all-guys channel. Sort of like Women's Entertainment (WE), only we'll call it Men's Entertainment. Didn't catch the acronym? Have another beer.

Reach Micheal Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-2461.