Ross: Can Gillette really shave your masculinity?
Jan 15, 2019, 9:40 AM
The headline in the Wall Street Journal this week read “P&G Challenges Men to Shave Their ‘Toxic Masculinity’ in Gillette Ad.”
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P&G is the company we used to call Proctor and Gamble. The story is about the company’s Gillette brand that has a new YouTube ad. It shows stereotypes of men behaving like jerks on sitcoms and in board rooms.
And the common excuse: “Boys will be boys.”
Then half way through, it cuts to clips of a dad separating two boys fighting. And a dad holding his young son’s hand. Then a man scolding another man who was making cat calls. In other words, men behaving like normal people should.
“Men need to hold other men accountable,” the ad states.
Nowhere in the voice-over did it say anything about “shaving toxic masculinity.” It didn’t talk about shaving at all.
As for the comments on the Wall Street Journal website:
“An insult to every American male.”
“We don’t need to be feminized.”
“Stick to making razors.”
“Gillette wants men to wake up and shave each other.”
Although, as I said there’s nothing in the ad about shaving, mutual or otherwise.
One commenter even went so far as to threaten a “mancott” of all Gillette products.
I have to say, seldom have I seen so many comments that, in criticizing an ad, they ended up so thoroughly confirming its underlying premise.
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