Everyone is overlooking the real message in the Gillette advert
By now you’ll no doubt be familiar with the Gillette advert currently doing the rounds, the one that, despite aiming to sell razors to men, portrays them negatively, playing up to such themes as ‘toxic masculinity,’ ‘mansplaining’ and citing the ‘MeToo’ movement against sexual harassment.
The ad has come in for some heavy flak. Everywhere you look online, men are taking to the internet to decry Gillette, parent company Procter & Gamble, and vowing never to buy their products again.
Piers Morgan devoted his column in the Mail to it. US commentator Ben Shapiro almost expired, live on his radio show, such was his exasperation with it.
A few things to clear up before we begin. I am not what you’d call your typical male feminist type; certainly, I’m not one of those weird ones with eyebrow piercings who refer to themselves as ‘allies’ and shriek ‘believe women!’ when faced with questions about the gender pay gap.
Nor do I believe the ad is a good one. It isn’t. Watching it, you’d almost think it hadn’t been made for men, but to appeal to women (which, when you consider it was dreamt up by Grey New York and director Kim Gehrig, the mind behind the ‘This Girl Can’ exercise ad and the ‘Viva La Vulva’ anthem, seems entirely plausible).
It is, in parts, ridiculous. The demonstration of ‘mansplaining’, and the lecherous man in the TV show segment, are beyond parody. So too is the scene in which two young boys start fighting, and a legion of men, looking on, shrug and refrain ‘boys will be boys’.
That the advert uses the #MeToo movement as a hook is not necessarily a great look for a company, and isolates an awful lot of men. It is so easy to see why so many people feel it talks down to them, as potential sex pests, creeps, bullies and bad fathers.The advert is poorly timed, poorly executed, and poorly thought through.
However, what seems to have been missed is that the ultimate message the advert gives is that traditional masculine traits are actually good.
This may not have been the intention, especially given the ads’ feminist direction. But ultimately, what we can take away from it, once we get past the initial affront, is that the ‘good’ men in the advert display strength, honour, assertiveness, courtesy, leadership and discipline – all attributes any man would wish to be considered as having by his peers.
When feminists talk about ‘toxic masculinity’, even these traits come under attack, especially with the idea that men who display these characteristics might consider themselves ‘alpha males’, or even ‘white knight’ types. Yet the advert can’t help but portray good men in any other way. Why? Because these traits are the very best of masculinity. There’s no denying it.
Little boys fight and bully each other naturally. But though little boys fight, are more naturally inclined to come to blows and, yes, in a way, will always be like that, fathers and grown men don’t let them beat each other to a pulp. It is as much a natural response of fathers to discipline their sons as it is for the sons to fight in the first place. Roughhouse a little, settle scores, but men step in at some point. Why? Because they need to learn society doesn’t tolerate excessive violence. It is the masculine thing to teach boys discipline, and to manage their aggression within reason.
And, when it comes to the example of the men in the advert fighting, patronising, and in one case following an attractive woman down the street, if some guy told your sister or mate to smile, or ogled them and tried to walk behind them, you’d hope most men would intervene. Intervention means risking escalation; confrontation risks violence in any walk of life, be the protagonists male or female. It takes stones to risk that escalation. It takes strength, assertiveness, bravery, not to mention the implied threat of being prepared to use violence, to risk your welfare to do the right thing. That is what the advert demonstrates. It’s masculine, and it’s anything but toxic.
It isn’t telling men to be weak. It’s telling them to intervene in fights, to stand up to other people misbehaving. That’s a real virtue, and it’s inherently masculine. Sure, the advert may have set out to push the agenda that many male traits are toxic. But the only conclusion I could draw from it was that ultimately, traditional male traits are what make men great. Anybody can be a dickhead; it takes strength to be a man.
