All I can say is "Oh, my goodness!" I hope that your description isn't true!
So, in America if you like violence you are straight, if not you are gay? I'm sorry, but I just can't believe that in USA people think in that way!
Practically you are saying that the avg American man is interested just in action movies, football, bear and violence, because if not, people will question their sexuality?
Marketing people generally seem to assume (maybe wrongly) that to sell something to the average American male it must conform to a stereotypical notion of what manly or macho is. Do they do it that way because they don't know what they are doing, or because that's the way society is, and it works? I'm not saying the average guy is interrested in something because if they don't people will question their "manliness". I am claiming many boys/men avoid things if they fear it will cause their peers to question their manliness.
Who are the Carl's Juniors commecials targeted at? Not girls/women I would guess. Why does Hollywood market one type of film in one way to attract teenage boys and other films are marketed a different way aimed at a female audience, and yet another way to attract tweens? In fact, movies are often produced to appeal to a specific audience and then marketed to bring that audience into the theatre (or so says my relative the production company executive).
So last night, I'm watching a repeat of South Park and Kenny is taking home economics while Stan, Kyle and Cartman are in shop class. They are asked why they are in shop class and Stan says -- we didn't take home economics because we didn't want people to think we were sissies. It was a funny way of illustrating the idea that many boys tend to avoid things that they think will make them look less manly to their friends.
I think a lot of young boys would be willing to try figure skating but don't because they are afraid their friends will think them "sissies", or are afraid dad wouldn't approve, and thus don't try it. Hockey yes. Public sessions yes. But unfortunately competing to music, gives a lot of young boys pause.
Then this story in the LA Times yeserday. Actual headline.
"Manliness is next to godliness"
"Convinced that men are dodging church because it saps their masculinity, some evangelists invoke a tougher Jesus to get the rams back into the fold"
So it even spills over into selling religion now! Apparently some churches now think if you want to bring men into church you need a macho savior!
Anyway, back to marketing. You can
1. Accept skating for what it is, reognize your demographic group, and do what it takes to get as many people in the deographic group watching or in an arena. Clearly things have slipped in this area over the years. So how do you get more of your core demographic group (women, children, families) back? What has changed that has driven them away? Figure it out and fix it.
2. You better educate the public about what skating is in the hope you can expand your demograpahic group, without making major changes to the sport. This has never been done particularly well by the federations, so there is a lot that could be tried. TV has not been particularly helpful in this area either.
3. You change the sport to make it appeal to a wider or bigger demographic group. Most suggested changes along these lines don't appeal to me because they turn skating into something I wouldn't be interested in. Also, I think 1 and 2 will be easier to accomplish and more successful. Truth be told, I like the wierd stuff that some skaters put on the ice, I like the music, I like the bizzare costumes, and I like the perfomance aspect of it. But I also expect the skaters to execute the athletic side of it first. I can't enjoy a performance if a skater is wiping up the ice, no matter how "artistic it is", no more than I could enjoy a musical performance if the pianist hits a lot of clinkers, or the singers voice cracks because they can't reach the notes, or a play where the actors can't remember their lines and mumble.
, and at least in basketball, many of the female players do appear to have lesbian tendencies, at least at some of this state's universities, that includes the coaches.
