On Monday, shaving company Gillette launched a new advertising campaign criticising endemic forms of toxic masculinity, and promoting their ideal of a more inclusive masculinity, in an attempt to sell more shaving razors.
The short advertisement, featuring clips which touch on #MeToo, violence, sexism, and aggression, ostensibly encourages men to be the ‘best they can be,’ a twist on their traditional ‘Gillette: The Best A Man Can Get’ slogan.
But this new campaign has not proved popular, with some bristling at the implication that their brand of masculinity could have negative outcomes.
‘I fucking hate this. Stay in your lane,’ thought James Lee (23), a fifth-year Commerce student with a passion for Jordan B. Peterson’s ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ and its subsequent follow-up, ‘12 Rules For Life.’
‘This is actually fucked,’ he began to whisper to himself, as the advertisement challenged men to resist negative, violent behaviours, and endorse an open, positive outlook.
‘I mean, I am completely confident and unshaken in my masculinity. I don’t care what a shaving company says. In fact, my relentless confidence in the way I live my life is why I’m going to boycott all their products,’ he muttered in an exclusive interview with The Obiter.
‘No company is going to tell me to critically reflect upon my underlying beliefs and attitudes in a one and a half minute advertisement. Yuck.’
Referring to an article by far-right publication, The New American, James indicated to us that he could ‘think for himself,’ but that they really ‘said it all.’ In the article, the author writes ‘Men are the wilder sex, which accounts for their dangerousness - but also their dynamism.’
Let’s just pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that’s a real thing that a real online article wrote. Genuinely hilarious. That is the one thing we’ll publish this month that we didn’t make up, and it’s the funniest thing we’ve read in a while. Carrying on!
‘I’m dynamic!’ James yelled as we tried to leave his depressing Toowong studio apartment. ‘My danger leads to my dynamism - I’m so dynamic, I can call women sluts and also be frustrated that they won’t sleep with me in the same breath! I’m Mr Dynamic!’
Hopefully, no more to come.