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Let's start a dialogue about the Gillette commercial...


That_One_Guy

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I've watched the commercial several times and I can't figure out why people find it offensive. I genuinely want to hear opinions about why it's offensive because I don't understand. Or you can just ignore this shit. We're all going to die anyway. 

Edited by That_One_Guy
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57 minutes ago, fuggstop said:

I think it makes men feel bad as they should feel and they dont want their awfulness challenged because they like being pigs

it didn't make me feel bad or angry or anything. i was pretty cool with it. there's nothing wrong with being fair and kind, nor promoting the same.

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4 hours ago, That_One_Guy said:

I've watched the commercial several times and I can't figure out why people find it offensive. I genuinely want to hear opinions about why it's offensive because I don't understand. Or you can just ignore this shit. We're all going to die anyway. 

All I took away from the commercial was Gillette was saying "Try to be a decent human being"

That offended some people because it didn't fix their tiny dick problems

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I appreciate everyone's input. It's been really insightful. I see people trying to knit pick about why this commercial is wrong, and honestly it's sad. I think it's an inspiring piece of art. I see its message as "not all men are bad, but some are and those men need to be checked." I think the perfect way to sum it up would be to say it's ok to hit on a woman, but it's not ok harass her. Simple. I don't see why that's bad. I also see it as encouraging women to be strong. Which is tits, bro. 

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I've been trying to figure out what exactly is triggering the negative response to the commercial.  Ostensibly, it doesn't really delve deep into the issues with male identity that tend to drive this hysteria (on the part of men), it just pokes at the most obvious of masculinity stereotypes and counters with the most basic of decency interventions.  There shouldn't be anything controversial about disavowing blatant sexism in the media and stepping in against workplace and  casual sexual harassment.  After thinking on it a bit, I think it's possible that this is just an extension of men struggling with their identity.

A friend on FB was discussing an (unfortunately) routine case of body shaming and bullying by middle schoolers at her daughter's school, and it occurred to me that a big issue with both bullying and sexual harassment is this underlying failure by society as a whole to accommodate men as nurturers.  It's a misconception that men need to become feminine to nurture; there's more than enough historical evidence to indicate that men can act as passive facilitators  through any number of means, not the least of which is simply listening and asking questions.  The issue is that we as a society have lost the desire to do this. Sometimes its couched in the debate over politics; sometimes its couched on the debate over identity and an obligation for men to hear things.  Neither is truly the case:  listening is at its most important precisely when the person speaking doesn't know what to say or doesn't feel like she (or he) deserves a say and it doesn't involve offering any commentary or opinion.

That might be the true issue here.  Men have always been expected to have an opinion on something for their act of listening to be acknowledged.  It's part of a greater metric of measuring success by the accomplishments one accrues.  We often reward good grades and sporting successes, for children of all genders, either through verbal approval or through raising the child's stature amongst his, her or their peers.  But, we don't reward anyone for sacrificing of themselves to enable others.  This commercial only  hints at this in the most basic of terms by showing men who step in to stop obvious bad behavior.

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Most of the anger is not about the content of the ad, in and of itself. It's about the larger narrative that fails to acknowledge any positive aspects of masculinity. We suspect many people that have a strong dislike of it did not come across it organically, but were introduced to it by someone else, billing it as controversial, thus primed for a negative reaction.

There may also be some resentment, a much smaller proportion though, about morals being handed down by a corporation- key word being "down".

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I can see guys getting annoyed at the guy stopping the other one from trying to hit on a chick. I didn't get that, it didn't show him hounding a woman all night, just trying to get a cute girl walking down the street. 

It could start to raise a question of what harassment really is, when is bad flirting harassment, is it ever. That could get some colorful internet discussions going. I can already see incels blanket claim of saying they are that and none of it is true.

 

Hitting each other and hooting at women is what humans do, and most of them still wanna do it. Even the people that wrote the commercial have these traits in them. But aggression displays are very popular in wildlife, with the aim of avoiding confrontation. What better way to avoid confrontation and be aggrssive than to type a buch of hateful rhetoric and post it on the internet.

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1 minute ago, empty said:

Also, why does anybody get that bent out of shape about a commercial for razors?

That could also be a problem. It wasn't really a razor commercial, but gillette making a statement aimed at men. I couldn't call it a psa, but it was like one. maybe the ceo was banging his secretary and this was the divorce settlement.

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21 hours ago, Kweerie said:

Most of the anger is not about the content of the ad, in and of itself. It's about the larger narrative that fails to acknowledge any positive aspects of masculinity. We suspect many people that have a strong dislike of it did not come across it organically, but were introduced to it by someone else, billing it as controversial, thus primed for a negative reaction.

There may also be some resentment, a much smaller proportion though, about morals being handed down by a corporation- key word being "down".

But the commercial portays positive masculinity.

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1 hour ago, scoobdog said:

But the commercial portays positive masculinity.

Not in the first three seconds, so it doesn't count.

Besides, you think outrage mobs care about inconvenient details? That's cute.
The frustration precedes the event, and is just waiting for a trigger that's close enough to unleash.

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11 minutes ago, Kweerie said:

Not in the first three seconds, so it doesn't count.

Besides, you think outrage mobs care about inconvenient details? That's cute.
The frustration precedes the event, and is just waiting for a trigger that's close enough to unleash.

True.

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1 hour ago, Distortedreasoning said:

just saw the commercial the other day and it felt like the same corporate bullshit to me. nothing to get upset about, just another company like nike trying to capitalize on taking a moral high ground. 

It kind of reminded me of this Pepsi commercial, but Gilette found a way to sound like more of a bitch.

The irony here is a nice pallet cleanser...

 

 

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