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".