I kinda feel pushed….

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….to comment on Gillettes new ad on ‘morals for men’.  It seems to have generated a lot of hype.  Some men are angry at being lectured.  Some of the really nice ones are pleased that they are being shown how to be nicer.  Be better men.  They really, really want to be the best they can be — as defined by someone else, of course.  In this instance, the advisers are the women ad directors of Gillette.

And, really, who would know better?

But, despite the au courant feeling of being pushed to opine, I am ambivalent in the extreme.  Who cares what some ad execs come up with?   Mind you, one has to admit that they are good at what they do.  Ya gotta admire good work when you see it.  Those ad execs made the typically, really boring ad about shaving a sensational news item complete with movie stars and politicians commenting.  And now, I am, too!  THAT’S GOOD ADVERTISING.

But that is all it is.  Yes, they are depicting some men (mostly boys, actually) as bullies or lecherous. . .duh. . .some are. . .but, so, like……didn’t they also show in the same ad that most men were not?

Doesn’t that mean that the basic ad is really indicating that all men are different?

Didn’t they also show men making cartoonishly sexist gestures back in the 60’s as being really, really bad and, well. . .cartoonish?  So BAD is just bad humour?  I kinda agree with that to some extent, actually. 

But didn’t they also portray a potentially ordinary human interaction as very, very wrong? (A guy notices a very beautiful woman walk by and sets out to. . .what?  In broad daylight. . .on a busy street. . .maybe commit the unpardonable sin of introducing himself?).  Thank GOD she was saved by the intervention of his friend who advised him ‘not cool, man’.  He dutifully obeyed and turned away.  Good boy! 

Boy does NOT meet girl – the new universal story.

Mind you, I sat down beside Sally on the steps of a public building and began talking to her almost fifty years ago.  My bad?  Maybe I should apologize?

The point is that advertising attempts to paint a scenario in such as way as to get your attention and, at the same time, etch their brand into your brain.  Gillette did that.  End of story.  

Are they right about men?  Of course not!  They had thirty seconds to tell a self-serving story.  They took shortcuts.  Are they right about our collective morality?  Of course not, they are selling product!  Are they wrong about men?  Of course not.  Some men are bad and some are really, really nice.  Some are tall, some are short and all the men in the ad were of similar height.  They did NOT get it right.  No one expected they would.  They did what they could. 

So what?

My only beef with the ad is that it shows all the ‘good men’ lined up at barbecues looking sincere with spatulas in their hands.  That is a tactical strike against all of us men.  Barbecuing is a long-running feminist conspiracy as yet unrecognized except by a few of us.  Barbecuing was a plot by feminists enacted way back in the 60’s to make men cook.  Seriously!  Gloria Steinhem owns Weber.  Everyone knows that.  Once they get all the men wearing aprons and cooking and looking sincere, the next step is world domination.

But the ad?  It’s just an ad.  Go back to being you.  We know the truth about men and it does not have to include barbecuing.  In fact, it should not!  You know why?  Because, really. . .?  All men are pigs! 

10 thoughts on “I kinda feel pushed….”

  1. Gillette in its advertising is ‘’virtue signalling.” But who needs models of aspirational human behaviour? The presumption is that the deficiencies fall more on one gender rather than upon the other. The premise is that one’s qualities as a fastidious person are revealed by the brand of razor blades used. How is that done, do we flash our Gillettes as we leave the store? By his blades we shall know him. See that guy his underwear is clean and he shares the household duties and he uses Gillette’s. Pick him he is clean.

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  3. I’ve noticed over the past 20 years or so the ads on tv, radio, etc. constantly, seem to portray men as bumbling idiots that need to be “saved” by intelligent women.
    Dont believe me? Think I’m being overly sensitve?
    Nope . Just making an observation.
    Watch the ads on ANY media over one week and make note of how many portray men as stupid, clumsy, oafs that arent rescued by other men….no no , only women can save them from themselves..
    Male bashing is easy because men put up with it.
    I’m sick of it.
    I change the channel. Or make a note not to buy the product advertised.
    Gillette is just another product in a long line of products.
    perhaps Gillette is appealing to female customers now that men are growing beards?
    Who cares.
    One wonders, if the situation were reversed what outraged comments would ensue from the opposite sex over a constant bombardment of disparaging ads..
    Oops. I said sex.

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  4. Funny reader comment of the day from an other blog.

    “Sent today in the mail, along with a bunch of unused blades and my once-trusty Gillette Mach 3 razor:

    Dear Geniuses of the Gillette Company,

    As a 30-year customer, I am returning all unused Gillette products to your care and will not be purchasing them in the future.
    Your entire marketing department and brand management team should be keelhauled for your recent online advertising campaign. It’s frankly the most breathtakingly unforced exercise in self-immolation I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve been in marketing for a lot of years.
    It’s painfully clear that you do not wish to have my business any longer, and I can only assume you are only interested in serving your female customers – that is, if you erudite New Englanders still dabble in such paleolithic ideas as “men” and “women” in binary terms.
    It’s equally clear that not a single member of your marketing decision tree has ever exerted enough masculinity to change a goddamned tire, let alone earned the chops to tell American men how badly we should feel about our gender.
    Indeed, the last man to come out of Boston who was worth a damn was John Quincy Adams.
    Therefore, I am sending these unnecessary symbols of patriarchic oppression for your safekeeping in your vast underground vault of political correctness, since I would not want to contaminate my local landfill with any residual toxic masculinity that remains on these relics of a once-relevant brand.
    Good luck in your ongoing efforts to denigrate, insult and otherwise impugn the very genetic composition of your primary customer.

    Idiots.

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