Perhaps its unintentional. All the negative media that Gillette is getting. I am sure you have seen the anti-man campaign. Excuse me, I mean, “The Best Men Can Be” campaign. At least that is what they are calling it.
The new Gillette ad, the brainchild of director Kim Gehrig, has brought to the forefront the issue of toxic masculinity. It's presented as a problem and Gillette the solution. The tip of the spear. Where they are going to start making a difference, and “challenge the stereotypes and expectations of what it means to be a man.”
The message is off-balance. A message that lacks a thought process. When Gillette decided to go this route, it seems, they may not have thought out the consequences. Or perhaps they did. It’s conceivable they knew, that by going hard left they had a sizable base to gain profit from. They perhaps calculated that any losses from the other side would be offset by the gains they expected from said base.
But somehow, I don’t think that 27.3 million views later on YouTube (at the time of this writing) they imagined that they would have 740k likes and 1.3 million dislikes. Ouch! But they are standing by their statements. They want to make sure to do their part to make men the best they can be.
The problem, is they have their feet planted firmly on nothing. Their attempt at being Big Brother, telling its consumers, we are watching, and are making sure behaviors change. Will fall on deaf ears. That is, to anyone, willing to examine what they are actually saying.
The ad starts with the following statements:
“Bullying, the "Me Too" movement against sexual harassment, toxic masculinity.”
And then the narrator asks; “Is this the best a man can get? Is it?”
Men are all Toxic?
Now when we see this, we are to believe that the fictional world that Gillette creates here is a real one. Throughout the ad, no substance is provided, what director Kim Gehrig did was piece together some microscopic pieces of news to insinuate a false reality. What wasn’t news, was a well-choreographed, actor portrayal, of again, a world that does not exist.
The initial question; “Is this the best a man can get?”, assumes that men, as a gender, have reached a pinnacle of sorts. That at the height of “men-kind”, (literally men only,) you get bullies, sexual harassers, and a general conclusion that masculinity itself is toxic.
The question is rhetorical because Gillette already has an answer. The question itself is about a world that we don’t live in. We do not live in a toxic masculine world. This is a classic example of a hasty generalization with some bandwagon fallacy sprinkled in.
The old saying, “men are pigs,” itself a hasty generalization, is now, “toxic masculinity.”
The emotional response any sensible person has upon hearing the allegations reported in the last two years about certain abuses made by men is understandable. What is not, is the general labeling of men that has come from that emotional response.
The political left, Hollywood and some major news networks all agree that toxic masculinity is a problem, and we see a lot of social justice warriors’ parrot what they hear and Gillette has now gullibly jumped on board of this growing misrepresentation. And while it may be accepted by some wide circles it has not been justified in the least.
There isn't enough evidence to label masculinity as toxic. What may be the case is that making such an argument is beneficial to some, possibly Gillette in this case. It’s unfortunate, that we have to take pause at the ads of products that we use every day, to see what message they are portraying. But that is what Gillette has forced us to do. And while they are keeping the guise going that they want to start a conversation, its more obvious that they are trying to make a point. At the same time, they are taking sides as well.
Gillette wants to create a better man in the future?
I am not blind to the issues at hand. Everything that the ad says has happened. Some men are guilty of sexual harassment. Guilty of bullying. Even guilty of mansplaining. But so are women. Women have been guilty of sexual harassment and bullying. And what wife or girlfriend has never had to explain what her husband or boyfriend actually meant?
When President Trump said "they're rapists" when referring to illegal Mexicans that crossed the border, (an ignorant and thoughtless statement) people went into a frenzy. Are we OK with calling Mexican men bullies, sexual harassers and label them as toxic?
What we see perhaps, is an attempt by Gillette, to win over millennials that prefer buying from companies that adhere to corporate social responsibility. (A noble endeavor, when not tainted in identity or partisan politics.) It may be that Gillette wants to align themselves on the political left. Or perhaps some misguided Executive thought Gillette needed to lead the way.
What we do know, is that from a marketing perspective, alienating a large segment of your consumers is not good for business. It’s certainly not good PR and a pathetic attempt at starting a coherent conversation.
Whenever a large corporation like this starts to pass judgment on essentially half of the populace, the consumers of such information have to pause and take notice. Gillette’s idea of what men are, or what they believe men think men should be is absurd. No men that I know, and certainly not myself, would stand around watching boys fight and in a dismissive tone say, “boys will be boys.”
The images portrayed throughout the ad are so unrealistic it’s hard to believe some people conceive of the world being that way. As bad as these assumptions are, what is worse is that Gillette wants to create a better man in the future; believing that young boys observing men as they currently are, will bring about a more toxic future.
Moving forward.
I ask what is it that boys should look up to? A man breaking up a fight? A man stopping a total stranger from talking to a girl he was attracted to? Or a guy telling a girl, “smile sweetie.” (Before someone argued against this last point, I would highly have you figure out a defense on why Jay-Z who calls women far worse names, is accepted by the proponents of the “toxic masculinity” idea, as a good role model for the nation to follow.)
Funny enough, Gillette probably has the answer to that question. What should young boys be looking up to, what standard? How about circa 1989, when Gillette released its new ad for the Gillette Atra Plus System?
An ad that portrayed a father and son shaving playfully. A man and woman recently married running to their waiting limo, only for the man to stop, and embrace his father. An image of a dad helping his son lift weights. A son that proudly imitates his dad combing his hair in the mirror. A dad embracing his new born baby.
The future didn’t look so bleak then for Gillette. It’s a shame to think that perhaps they were pandering then as it seems they are now. And that while the images they portrayed in that first ad long ago, while true, and a great reminder of what men are and should be, was a ploy to get more sales.
Gillette seeks to look into the future and cast a new mold for men. But a great many men have already walked among us and still are today. It would do well for Gillette to acknowledge the misdeeds as well as the good deeds of men. And not in a half-hearted attempt that is superficial at best. But, in an honest way that allows the hurt to be healed and a nation to truly be united.
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