January 16, 2019

"These strong claims—cultural Marxism! SJW jackals! Leftist social priorities!—should strike anyone who actually watches the ad as fairly ridiculous."

Writes Robby Soave in "The Gillette Ad Tells Men Not to Hurt People. Why Is This Offensive?/'Toxic masculinity' is sometimes a scapegoat for the left, but this particular commercial makes no grand anti-male claims" (Reason).

I agree. The ad is full of men stopping other men from doing bad things. That's one of the best things men do, and it's what the ad highlights. The ad ends with shots of beautiful boys and — in the logic of the sequence of images — they are learning — from men — how to be good men.

Posted by Ann Althouse at 8:43 AM
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412 comments:

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Static Ping said...

One phenomenon at work here is the dual meaning of "toxic masculinity." We see this sort of thing on a regular basis from radical activists of all sorts where they have a radical and, coincidentally, unpopular definition among themselves, but for public consumption it has a more innocuous meaning that is generally inoffensive. They switch between the two meanings as suits their purposes.

We see this with the definition of "feminism." The public claim is it means equality of men and women. When the radicals are among themselves it morphs into heterosexuality is rape and all women must be lesbians. When people start pointing out the radical definition, the activists then argue that these people are actually opposed to the public definition and therefore hate women.

As for "toxic masculinity", we get the following:

PUBLIC: It refers to the bad behaviors associated with men, such as sexual abuse and domestic violence, that should be curbed.
RADICAL: All men are awful simply because they are men.

We can see what is behind the curtain now.

1/17/19, 11:01 AM
Cassandra said...

...one of the most interesting (most offensive too) things about the ad has not been mentioned I think. There are various scenes of a fake sitcom where on stage a white man gleefully fondles the rear end of a very attractive young black woman dressed up as a housekeeper. He does this twice in two separate scenes.

I found it interesting that the racial overtones of this ad bugged my husband far more than the sly suggestions that there's something wrong with plain ole masculinity. It was interesting that the race aspect didn't bother me as much (for reasons I'll get into shortly).

The 50s vibe was odd there, particularly as we never saw overtly sexual behavior on TV back then. They didn't even show double or queen beds for married couples - too sexy!!!

The racial aspects of the ad reminded me of an incident that caused us to put our oldest son in private school a few decades ago. A boy on our street was suspended from school for carrying a pocketknife (of the kind we all had as kids) in his pocket at school. He was in our son's Scout troop.

He didn't threaten anyone with it. He didn't cause any disruption at all. He only got caught because it fell out of his pocket at recess and someone told on him.

We were stunned when he was suspended. My theory was that it was "safe" for the school to make an example of a white boy who didn't have a history of aggression or bullying or fighting. They were making a statement. The middle school had a lot of race related fights, and sadly it wasn't white students picking on blacks, but the other way 'round.

My (perhaps naive/overly generous) take on the ad was that they were showing POC as the heroes, standing up for treating women better, precisely because in black and Hispanic popular culture, you don't see that often. Rap is notorious for truly ugly/misogynistic behavior, and then there's the whole machismo stereotype. Had they shown black men being sexually aggressive, they would have been called racists. So black men were the heroes.

We pulled our son from public school b/c I had very little interest in seeing my son held to a FAR higher standard of behavior to help the school deflect accusations of racism every time a kid who was *actually* causing trouble was disciplined. One of the greatest things about being in the military was seeing so many black parents who were incredibly strict with their kids (as we were).

Popular culture, however, isn't like that.





1/17/19, 11:19 AM
Anonymous said...

@Static Ping

RADICAL: All men are awful simply because they are men.

Exactly. And the ad is crafted to please the groups who push that. It's simply not possible the ad's creator, radical feminist Kim Gehrig, didn't know the implications of the phrase.

Anyone who watches the ad and thinks otherwise is fairly ridiculous.

1/17/19, 12:57 PM
David Docetad said...

My (perhaps naive/overly generous) take on the ad was that they were showing POC as the heroes, standing up for treating women better, precisely because in black and Hispanic popular culture, you don't see that often. Rap is notorious for truly ugly/misogynistic behavior, and then there's the whole machismo stereotype. Had they shown black men being sexually aggressive, they would have been called racists. So black men were the heroes.

This is no doubt exactly right, which is also why the racial aspect of the ad was far worse for me (like your husband) than the male bashing, which is very common in commercials.

1/17/19, 2:03 PM
Anonymous said...

@Cassandra, @DDocetad
I actually didn't notice the racial mix until it was pointed out to me. Males aren't typically good at nuance detection, I guess. But on a second viewing - it was obvious. Maybe I missed it because I was distracted by the main message? Or what I assumed was the main message? Or nuance doen't mean what I think it means?

But, whyever I failed to see it, and since color-blindness has apparently fallen from grace since MLK:
7 Reasons Why ‘Colorblindness’ Contributes to Racism Instead of Solves It
https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/02/colorblindness-adds-to-racism/

...I fear not noticing makes me a racist. And I was already a male. And white. And a classical liberal. And old. And ex-urban. Sigh.

@DDocetad
I think this commercial blatantly raised common variety male bashing to a whole new level. When the ante is upped like this, there are transition dangers revealed.

1/17/19, 2:40 PM
mockturtle said...

I imagine that the people who support this ad 'helping' men to do the right thing overlaps greatly with the people who believe a woman should be able to kill her unborn child whenever that child is inconvenient.

Exactly, Laslo! What could be any more toxic than murdering your unborn child?

1/17/19, 3:55 PM
mockturtle said...

Well, to answer my own question: Killing all of your children like Medea.

1/17/19, 3:56 PM
Douglas B. Levene said...

I love the Schick add in response: It shows two guys, no shirts, leaning on the ropes in a boxing ring. They look like they just finished sparring. They aren't models or supermen - just average guys in good enough shape to go at it in the ring. The line is "Schick is still selling razors to men."

1/17/19, 6:06 PM
Cassandra said...

Herschblogger and DDocedad:

Got caught up in work (still working) but wanted to thank you for your responses. Back to the salt mines!

1/17/19, 6:32 PM
Fen said...

" it’s a “Mars/Venus” type of thing where the two sides genuinely, apparently, see something completely different in the same ad. "

Disagree. That's not why people are seeing something "completely different". It's all about context:

1) if you are fully aware of the constant attacks orchestrated against masculinity over the last few years, you know EXACTLY what this ad is and how foul its intent. For example, I'm sure Dr Helen instantly recognized this as the same drek she routinely critiques.

2) there is a second group that doesn't understand the history and context behind the ad. To be fair to them, if I ignore the context I know, it's easy to share their perspective the ad was benign. Akin to telling your date "that lady just meant you are brave to wear last year's fashions" in an endearing yet clueless kind of remark.

3) the third group knows exactly why the ad is problematic but are pretending they don't, while taking cheap shots at group 1 by taunting them for "over-reacting". This group is comprised of our hostess Althouse and bitter feminists who hold contempt and hatred for masculinity.
.

1/17/19, 7:44 PM
John Clifford said...

The reason I found this ad offensive is that it portrays dysfunction as the normal state of maleness, that it is unusual for men to step up and speak out against boorish or abusive behavior. Yet, the Left, with its refrain of "Who are you to judge?" has discouraged anyone from condemning behavior, and has especially discouraged positive masculinity. A society reaps what it sows; destroy belief in morality, judgment, and standing up for what's right (go tell an adult, don't enforce Norma yourself or confront violence with violence) and then wonder why you get what you get.

1/17/19, 8:53 PM
John Clifford said...

That's 'norms' not 'Norma'... damn spellcheck, damn you to Hell!

1/17/19, 8:55 PM
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