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Men need pants.

That's the message I got from the Super Bowl.

 Super Bowl advertisements were a little bit bolder, a lot weirder and definitely featured more pantsless men than previous years. Pantsless men in the workplace. Pantsless men striding purposefully down fields of gold. Pantsless men facing sumo wrestlers.

Viewers can draw what they want from that trend, but we're declaring it a metaphor for the economy. The jobless rate is so high, even trousers aren't a guarantee in life anymore.

No. No. I'm saying it's about masculinity. Like most ads directed at men. You know how I've been railing for years about men in shorts? Here's my original men in shorts post. Key point: "shorts are children's clothes." Here's the second. Key point: "If you are in shorts, you are not a man." Note: I made some exceptions. I had an anecdote:

I recently attended a talk led by a male lawprof who wore shorts (with a T-shirt and sandals). He stood up too, putting his boy-clothes on full display.

Tom Wolfe said it better:

[The professor] had on a short-sleeved shirt that showed too much of his skinny, hairy arms, and denim shorts that showed too much of this gnarly, hairy legs. He looked for all the world like a seven-year-old who at the touch of a wand had become old, tall, bald on top, and hairy everywhere else, an ossified seven-year-old, a pair of eyeglasses with lenses thick as ice pushed up to the summit of his forehead -- unaccountably addressing thirty college students....

So I appreciated the ad that ended: "Calling all men: It's time to wear the pants."

I was all: Yes! Men need pants! I've been saying it for years. (And here's that other pantsless ad... and it's not even an ad for pants.)

Full post as published by Althouse on February 08, 2010 (boomark / email).