The insult that made a man out of "Mac"

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Oh dear Lord. This has got to be one of the longest-running ad campaigns since the first alphabet was devised. If you've read any old comics or magazines, odds are good you've seen it.



If girls hitting puberty worry about what kind of breasts they will grow, how their hair and skin will turn out, boys the same age are just as fretful over whether they will be tall and strong. For every girl trying tissue paper in the training bra, there's a boy anxiously pressing the top of his head against a pencil mark in a doorway. The stigma of being short and skinny still horrifies boys and men today, the casual insults remain as cutting as ever. (I personally was lucky in that I hit six feet just before high school, but I had friends back then who never got beyond five feet six inches and put up with a lot of mean remarks from girls as well as other guys.)

It's no surprise that two of Marvel's most successful characters play on this anxiety by offering vicarious compensation. Peter Parker and Bruce Banner both are referred to frequently as "puny." The early Ditko Parker, even as Spider-Man, remained thin and under average height, which made his beating up of beefy goons a real wish fulfilment for kids who looked more like Parker than Steve Rogers. And Bruce Banner offered even more extravagant compensation as he went from a frail-looking ineffectual bookworm to something which has become a synonym for brute strength. The whole gig of being abused and taunted until you abruptly freak out and beat the snot out of your tormentors is a big part of the Hulk's appeal.

Comments

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

This post is incomplete without a mention of Flex Mentallo.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

True enough. Actually, I should have gone on to add that it's not a fraudulent ad. Charles Atlas' system seems to be a form of isometrics, the same sort of exercises recommended for office workers to use whenever they can. This won't build huge muscles as progressive resistance would, but isometrics will certainly increase muscle tone and strength (not a bad thing any way you look at it).

This ad has been parodied, oh a hundred times or so.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Now you need to put up the ads for "look who's smiling now." and Grit magazine.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

(http://pics.livejournal.com/dr_hermes/pic/0029y6g2/)

Check out this ad from a 1930s pulp. It's real. Any kid could buy a copy and send away for a pistol, brass knuckles, live turtle, "Novelty" pictures (ahem), lots of fun stuff to liven up the playground.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

I like the 'french photo ring'.

Just be sure to wear it on your off hand, boys and girls.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

The only thing missing in that ad are shoe mirrors.

[autolychus2.insanejournal.com]

It is fraudulent, because Atlas knew the claims he made weren't true. He claimed that his great bulk was due to this system and nothing else. In fact he made fun of weight training, which he did.

Back in the day, it was considered less than manly to have to lift weights to gain strength and bulk. Ain't that a kick in the head?

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

You've got a point. The ad says that Atlas (Whatever his real name was, Angelo Siciliano or something) owed his impressive build to this system. It warns against weight training, which apparently can damage your heart and other organs. So, although isometrics is worthwhile and not a bad idea for anyone to practice, it doesn't build bodies the way weight training does (which this ad says).

[autolychus2.insanejournal.com]

Oh, his ad campaign went further than that. He made sure in any interview, documentary, whatever that it was shown that this isometric system was the only way. It wasn't as bad as Big Tobacco hiring doctors to tell us that smoking was actually good for us (It exercises the lungs!), but it was of the same spirit.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I'm disappointed to learn that about Atlas. It moves him from an exercise advocate to a borderline quack. Too bad.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

That was just for his advertisements. He himself, as was said, lifted weights. He just didn't tell anyone else.

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

Back in the day, it was considered less than manly to have to lift weights to gain strength and bulk. Ain't that a kick in the head?

WTF? Did they think strength and built came from sitting on their ass all day?

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

A REAL man works out through SHEER WILLPOWER! They do pushups through the POWER OF THEIR BRAIN! Arms and legs are for wimps.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

Or being a farmer, dockworker, steelworker, etc.

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

So, if you worked with your brains, you were doomed to being scrawny? No "mens sana in corpore sano" allowed?

The more I hear about the past, the more I boggle when people talk of the "good old times".

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Now you're making me think of the sand-kicking at 'Most Sensitive Man in the World' as played by Brendan Frasier in Bedazzled. And the Dolphin Song.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Heh, this ad turns up all over. "We are the Champions" by Queen has the line, "I've had my share of sand kicked in my face."

Come to think of it, in a very early FANTASTIC FOUR, some bodybuilders on a California beach kick sand in the face of none other than the Thing (who is trying to relax under a newspaper)...

[caeliluminar.insanejournal.com]

Yet one more parody. (http://www.teamfortress.com/sniper_vs_spy/images/07_comic.jpg)

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Ha, Saxon Hale ?!?!

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Ewwww. That took a minute to sink in. Jarate, using your body's own metabolized beer as a weapon.

[nezchan.insanejournal.com]

Seriously, that ad was ubiquitous. Every silver age comic had them, hell I had a lot of books with them. Even into the 80's they were running the ads, if memory serves.

Made sense though, the teenage boys who the comics were aimed at were the same sort of kids the ads appealed to.

Puny Parkers

[(Anonymous)]

So it's kind of a pity that these days Spider-Man has the kind of body that most of his audience would kill to have.

Re: Puny Parkers

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I think it kinda takes away a lot of the appeal of the character. Aside from early-teen readers identifying more with Puny Parker, the visual of a scrawny lanky Spider-Man throwing big bruisers around has more impact. And it makes him look more spidery. (Ditko's art really played this up.)

Re: Puny Parkers

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

So does McFarlane's whether you like his art or not.

Re: Puny Parkers

[autolychus2.insanejournal.com]

See, I like McFarlane's version, Ditko's version and Hitch's version

[superfan1.insanejournal.com]

I love the archie parody of this story. Where the same thing happens to archie and betty beat the heck out of the guy.

[kenn_el.insanejournal.com]

You left out Scott "Slim" Summers, who was forced to wear glasses because without them, a devastating power would be unleashed, yet who 'won' the girl over the beautiful and wealthy Warren Worthington III! (The whole body-issues thing is sad, though, as, except for height, what guys obsess over can be worked on realistically, while what girls obsess on cannot, except for weight, which tends to be an overwhelming concern for some.)

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Weight can be worked on to an extent, but not nearly to proportion against the weight of body image issues.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

A weakling, weighing ninety-eight pounds,
Will get sand in his face, when kicked to the ground... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrwYJ1gx9WM)