Amante: Razor-sharp masculinity

(Illustration by John Gilbert Manantan)
(Illustration by John Gilbert Manantan)

FOR something that runs for less than 110 seconds, that new video by a razor company has provoked a conversation that’s loud and long.

Gillette’s “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” video was viewed at least 21.3 million times in its first five days on the brand’s YouTube channel. Its Twitter post with the same video inspired 51,000 comments as of Saturday, not all of them flattering. These included complaints that the advertisement made all men look inherently bad. “Imagine,” one comment went, “if there was a tampon advert that reminded women not to be gold-diggers.”

It’s fascinating how a message that inspires some can so repulse others. What does the Gillette video convey that has ruffled so many feathers? The visuals are simple enough. The ad shows, among others, scenes of boys bullying or fighting with other boys, a child weeping because someone has called him a sissy and a loser, and a male executive condescendingly explaining a female colleague’s statement while he pats her shoulder. A voice-over reminds viewers that excuses like “Boys will be boys” are no longer acceptable, and that men should set positive examples of how men can interact with women, “because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.”

Why is any of that offensive?

One way of reading that Gillette ad is to see it as a response to the #MeToo movement, an acknowledgment that “the best a man can get” needs rethinking. Most ads directed at men continue to run on the same familiar treads: to get the most desirable young female in the room, a man needs to wear the right cologne or drive a flashy car or drink a certain brand of whiskey.

Gillette took a calculated risk, and it can afford to do so. For years, this Procter and Gamble subsidiary has dominated the shaving products market. In January 2018, Forbes estimated that Gillette enjoyed a 65 percent share of the world’s razors and blades sales. It had also cut its prices to try to bring back consumers who had drifted over to startup brands that were more in touch with changing sensibilities and priorities, such as by offering more sustainable products.

So far, that risk does not seem to be paying off, at least on social media. (Its sales figures will be another metric to consider.) The Today show reported last Jan. 17 that some people were dumping Gillette razors down their toilet bowls. A conservative pundit asked men not to pay for a razor made by a company “that makes men feel bad about themselves.” The number of dislikes on the brand’s YouTube channel was double the number of likes as of Saturday, and majority of the comments disapproved of the ad’s virtue-signaling or attacked the “hairy feminists” behind it.

But Gillette has also accomplished something laudable. It has created an opportunity to talk about such ideas as identity politics and toxic masculinity, for those who care to go beyond the virtual shouting matches and think about what this particular moment in pop culture tells us about ourselves.

Writing in The Independent, Sabrina Barr defines toxic masculinity as “harmful behavior and attitudes commonly associated with some men, such as the need to repress emotions during stressful situations and to act in an aggressively dominant way.” These toxic traits include “the systematic devaluation of women’s opinions, bodies, and sense of self.”

The Gillette ad doesn’t ask for much. It doesn’t hold up as an ideal that rare being, the feminist man, who is often caricatured as someone who openly expresses his feelings and uses “privilege” as a verb. No, all it suggests is that men (and women) would be better off if they refrain from bullying or making unwanted advances, and call out those who do these despicable things. Why are so many upset about such an obvious message?

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