A fairly self-explanatory trope which hinges on the lauding of vulgarity, poor hygiene and boorishness as the epitome of masculinity. Works that use this trope proudly revel in uncouth stereotypes of adult men as being poorly mannered, lazy, obnoxious, drunken, gluttonous, vulgar, filthy, and... well... slobs.
When this trope is used, it is almost always combined with
Men Are Uncultured, though the opposite need not be true. A form of
The Unfair Sex and
Positive Discrimination. Often a key component of
Mars and Venus Gender Contrast.
Contrast with
House Husband. Also see
Men Can't Keep House.
Examples:
Advertising
- Countless beer and fast-food commercials feature men whose social graces are at a level only just above those of baboons. You'd think depicting the consumers of your product in this manner would be a bad idea, but apparently it works.
- Inverted in this
ad for men's underwear; showing a woman wearing only the underwear and Godiva Hair acting sterotypically male. Beer on cereal, burping and scratching. "Men don't want to look at naked men."
Film
- The film I Love You, Man has fun with this. Jason Segel's character has many aspects of this trope.
Literature
- A major point of Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys.
Live-Action TV
- Jayne Cobb from Firefly, who can be remarkably irritating in his superficiality about such things. He is the only one aboard who claims that the doctor is unmanly because he is a dandy. The others (including Mal and Book who would be very good judges on that score) all respect the doctor's courage even when irritated at him.
- Magnum, P.I. is a mild example of this, as Thomas Magnum and Higgins have a constant slobbery vs snobbery war. But this only goes so far and they are actually friends beneath the mutual snarkery.
- Inverted on The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon is very clean and organized, and his female neighbor Penny is the slob. Sheldon once even broke into Penny's apartment to clean up.
- Justified in that Sheldon has Super OCD and Penny is just a normal college student just trying to balance a full-time job with her studies.
- Onslow on Keeping Up Appearances. His perpetually soiled sleeveless shirt is in particular rememberable.
- Ken Hutchinson from Starsky And Hutch, who sometimes leaves quite a mess in his LTD.
Theater
- A Russian comedian, Yevgeniy Petrosian, had a sketch once where he outlined the typical man's schedule and the typical woman's schedule. The man's schedule consisted mostly of meals, TV, fishing, rest and "relaxation after rest". But it added up to more waking hours, so his conclusion was that men should have Mondays off.
- Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire is this trope.
- Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple (while Felix simultaneosly averts it).
- Moreso in the TV series, where both characters have been utterly Flanderized.
Western Animation
Real Life
- There's a real Canadian Superstore supermarket with an aisle simply marked "feminine hygiene". All the soap the store carries is located there too.
- "Feminine Hygiene" usually refers to menstrual products and occasionally douches. The soap was probably there because the section was next to the other body cleaning type stuff.
