BE BETTER by not being a misogynist shit head.
BE BETTER by not rewarding naked pandering from a vile and violent corporation.
There's room for both.
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Gillette’s inspiring new ad addressing toxic masculinity asks: “Is this the best a man can get?”
- Thread starter MouldyK
- Start date
BE BETTER by not being a misogynist shit head.
BE BETTER by not rewarding naked pandering from a vile and violent corporation.
There's room for both.
"I just desperately want to feel better than other people :("
great ad, great message, and the important thing is that it sends a good message. that being said, it's a company trying to make money. it's kind of like macklemore. i'm okay with it because the message is more important than the motivation behind who is saying it, but i'm not going to pretend like gillette is doing this for non-business reasons.
Is that 43% of boys being raised by single mothers statistic even true? Looks mighty inflated. Unironically, they missed that that's an example of sexism against women and the disproportionate burden they have to shoulder the responsibility of raising children.
Definitely a superiority complex. Simple rubes consuming media.
Ads exist in the real world and always will. Companies want to sell products.
It is useful in the sense that people do forget they're being advertised to, and do make purchasing decisions based on the emotional or moral connection that they think a company has. There's people - lots of people, in this very thread - who have pledged to give Gillette their money because of a moral position that Gillette does not have and does not hold. Gillette doesn't give a fuck if you bully someone. Gillette doesn't give a fuck if you tell your kid not to cry. Gillette gives a fuck that young men are subscribing to Dollar Shave Club.
When you support Gillette because of this ad campaign, you're not being a positive force in the world, and neither are they. You're just buying a product, and they're just selling one. This advertisement isn't designed to change people's positions on issues, or to make the men of the world better, because ads for fucking razors can't do that. Nobody's going to change because the razor man told them to. They're just selling a product by acting like they're "the good guys". They're not.
(and so we're left with the charity, which represents .015% of Gillette's annual sales and .0015% of P&G's, which is the equivalent of someone making $75k donating $11.25. it's a joke. it's absolutely nothing, relative to how much money they actually make.)
Your shitposting across Elon Musk threads will never be forgotten Harvey.
Yeah I refuse to watch any of SkillUp's videos even though they're constantly recommended to me. What a baby.
That was a damn great ad.
*Looks at like/dislike bar*... People really don't understand what toxic masculinity means do they?
*Looks at like/dislike bar*... People really don't understand what toxic masculinity means do they?
Disagree. You can make ethical choices and unethical choices when buying products.
Sure, it's an advert, but the message can still resonate with people and it is an important one. We can discuss the message separate from the ad, I doubt many here are suddenly going to rush out buy more Gillette products, though they may view the company more favourably so we can argue it was still successful. It may have been a calculated move cooked up by ad execs, but this type of media representation can help normalize attitudes and does have merit.
It reminds me a little of that ad that Campbell's had when they featured a same sex couple and people were criticizing them for pandering, but honestly it was just really nice to see a a gay couple in a commercial. That meant a lot to me, and i'm sure did a lot of people.
There is a good message here. I think it's worth focusing on that.
They're donating way more than $11 and it's not nothing, as you say. The money makes a difference.
It's a lot of dumb people this is a sexist attack on MEN!
It's amusing, but really sad.
Awesome, Ana Kasparian! Pepsi, take note. This is how you make a commercial with some social relevance.
They knew the response they were gonna get posting a video critical of toxic masculinity on fucking YouTube. These commenters are the same dipshits who brigade videogame trailers for having women in them.
I honestly wouldn't mind if news outlets would also ask about all these egregious business practices every time they hit up a corporation for comment about stuff like this, and make a note of it in their articles.
Like after some nice quote about inspiring men and blah blah blah
"Proctor & Gamble declined to comment on their continued use of child labour in [x country]."
article continues
Like after some nice quote about inspiring men and blah blah blah
"Proctor & Gamble declined to comment on their continued use of child labour in [x country]."
article continues
You're not wrong about what can be discussed here. And my comments are generally relegated to the people in this thread rewarding P&G's duplicitousness. We had the same thing happen in a Nike thread.
But to your example, I'd be much more comfortable with an ad showing a family doing a thing and, oh if you noticed, its two dads or two moms or an interracial couple. Though in today's world of everything being tested, screened, studied, and trialed I absolutely believe someone goes "LGBT rights are hot right now, let's get a gay couple in our next cream of mushroom soup ad". That's a preferable way to make a point then to think a soup company is in any way relevant to real people's problems or cares about them in any capacity other than them being a potential way to perk up lagging sales.
"HEY. We're Campbell's Soup and along with making the artery destroying soup base that your boss uses in that shitty chicken casserole he brings to the monthly pot luck and we have something to say!"
"Proctor and Gamble released a controversial new ad in praise of women's rights. When asked about their slave holdings on their palm farms that force women to work in poisonous environments they accused us of being misogynists and ended the interview."
And every single product has been made through exploitation
I don't think you're really wrong here, but even with this being the most likely case for a lot of companies I think these things normalize diversity being shown in ads and such, and is a good thing for the next generation to grow up seeing and will in time be done with more sincerity by future creatives.
I didn't want to go that far but yeah lmao I'm totally in support of this
If this is basically the "okay let's look at the bright side of this" then you're right and I couldn't argue with that line of reasoning.
*An advertisement that's actually asking men to be good, not sexist and to lead by example*
Piers Shithead Morgan: 'LET MEN BE MEN'
Piers Shithead Morgan: 'LET MEN BE MEN'
I appreciate your dedication to missing the point, but I'll spell it out again just in case you were actually attempting to be honest.
The amount of money they're donating, relative to how much money they have, is essentially meaningless. It's probably slightly more than they spend on toilet paper for their employees, and literally 1/8 of the cost of them putting their name on the New England Patriots' stadium. (If they wanted to make a real stand against toxic masculinity and male violence, maybe they'd find their way out of that contract instead!) I say this not to suggest that it's "literally $11", which is why I put in the phrase "relative to how much money they actually make". I say this to point out that, were they actually attempting to make a legitimate effort to be "the best Gillette can be", they'd be donating way more money.
The million dollars is a stunt, so that they can claim they're "backing their words with action". It's such a pathetically small amount of money for them that it has no meaning. It is, again, the equivalent of someone making $75k and donating $11.25. Is that "the best Gillette can be"? Or is it "them ostentatiously giving $11.25 in front of the entire world so they can make $25"?
They probably do, deep down, but acknowledging that some aspect of your upbringing and day to day lifestyle may be proximately responsible for someone else's suffering carries with it loads of painful guilt, guilt which only compounds the longer you refuse to acknowledge it for your personal mental comfort.
It doesn't take a social scientist to look at violence statistics and see that masculine culture could stand to be broadly criticized.
Sure, Gillette is trying to sell razors, but by putting this ad into the world maybe more people will have the toxic masculinity conversation. Maybe one more shithead will get called out. Maybe one man will think before he demeans someone. Selling tactic? Absolutely. But with all of the terrible ways brands can advertise themselves or insert themselves into your daily routine, changing your decades old tag line into a statement addressing a systemic plague on our society deserves an honest tip of the cap.
Fantastic ad.
Fantastic ad.
See I would still appreciate the potential for an ICE to be replaced with an electric car, regardless of who did it and for what reason. Because I'm not broken inside.
Personally, when it comes to donations I care less about how meaningful it is from the giver and more how effectual it is for the receiver.
Hoping is great, but don't forget to do what you can, when you can. We all can.
Looking at the like-to-dislike ratio and comments continues to deprive me of any hope for humanity. All we can do is our best by setting positive examples in our personal and professional lives.
This is some next-level gatekeeping. Damn. Just be happy that people are trying to make things better. Like holy shit
It's an unfortunate consequence of capitalism, and possibly a number of different power structures prior; a lot of internal cultural growth that influences positive social change has come from the cynical and often externally-destructive mechanism of profit seeking. You probably know more about it than I do and can clap back with a correction on what I just said lol.
I don't like it and I try to minimize my contributions to it, but I can't do anything substantial about it directly, and like you say can at least see the silver lining and be glad it's normalizing positive cultural messages instead of the current alternatives.
Totally with you on the people running out to buy a Gillette product lol
I think the Boys & Girls Club of America is doing just fine. Gillette could take that $1mil per year over 3 years and do something to fix their working conditions across the globe. But that would likely become this big "do we raise prices or do we cut our own salaries or do we stagnate wages elsewhere?" thing and we all know how that will go
On an individual level, I agree (to some extent). However, when it's being used as an advertising tool, I do think it's important to look at the amount and consider how much they stand to gain relative to how much they're giving away - if they stand to gain much more than they'd lose, it's not charity in my eyes. It's business.
you caught me, I'm keeping gillette out of the good people club
I'm incredibly influential
