Quote - "When's the last time you saw an advert with a rugged guy draping himself seductively over the side of a coupe? I'll go ahead and answer that one for you: Never".

Guess you didn't see that Super Bowl commercial of the guys striping down on the street for the Chev advert? Or the one I saw last night. Another car advert. All these sumo wrestlers giving the car a good washing, the same way they film big breasted, bikini clad women. Ow, my poor eyes.

The ads which you are describing sound like jokes -- they are treating the subject matter as a parody of itself.  Sort of like the way that men dressing up in women's clothes is often regarded as a big, funny joke -- whereas, by contrast, women dressing up in men's clothes isn't usually considered to be particularly humorous.

Some Like It Hot (Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon), or I Was A Male War Bride (Cary Grant), and Tootsie (Dustin Hoffman) were all comedies -- but the opposite theme of Yentl wasn't particularly funny (I don't find anything with "Babs" in it to be funny -- or even worth watching -- but that's a totally different topic........)

Those car commercials most definitely aren't the norm.  They are a satirical take on the norm -- which serves to prove the norm.  Satire, in order to be truly funny, has to be an exaggeration or a twist on something real.  Not on something totally imaginary.

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