I am an 18-25 year old American male, and I have a confession to make. I didn't get around to watching the Super Bowl this year.

  I heard a lot about it, though, mostly in the form of complaints about the general lack of luster in the ads this year. I was curious, so I headed to YouTube to check out what I missed.

  What I found was shocking. The showcase of American marketing was drowned in misogynistic and homophobic messages. To see exactly what I'm talking about, let's take a look at a few of the ads.

  I truly hope you caught FloTV's "Injury Report." It featured a particularly miserable-looking young man following his remarkably attractive girlfriend through a department store, with sportscaster Jim Nantz urging him to "change out of that skirt." FloTV plays off of the heteronormative standard of masculinity in American culture by asserting that a male who is featured in a less powerful role than a woman, or does anything within the realm of "girl stuff," is not a true man.

 The Dodge Charger "Man's Last Stand" follows in exactly the same vein. Dodge tells us men that the only way to be saved from carrying lip balm for our nagging female partners is to live our phallic childhood fantasy in a $30,000 car, or risk being transformed into wussy girly-men.

I was also very disappointed in Danica Patrick. GoDaddy.com's sexist advertising has almost come to be expected, but by featuring Ms. Patrick in a series of equally offensive ads (including one in which a group of horny boys literally take control of her mind), they trivialize her success. Ms. Patrick's accomplishments in a male-dominated field are not celebrated; instead, she is forced back into her traditional gender role of being sexually attractive and available to men. Would Danica have been nearly as popular had she not been so attractive?

This is just a small sampling of stereotypes that Madison Avenue sold during its spotlight performance on Sunday night. There were others, of course; another beer commercial suggesting that men are primarily concerned with sex, beer, and sports, in that order (books? what are those?); a wireless internet commercial exploiting stereotypes of South Asians working in call centers and a Dockers commercial urging men to "wear the pants."

We shouldn't blame Madison Avenue for the content of these ads, however. Their creativity is fueled by the market, and therefore is only a reflection of the culture in which they exist.

This is a pretty ugly reflection, though, in which racism, homophobia and misogyny are acceptable enough that they are given front-and-center attention during the biggest television event of all time.

Change out of that skirt, America.