These days it’s very rare that liberals and conservatives come together and agree on anything, but today is an auspicious exception. Everyone, well almost everyone, hates the new Gillette razor ad.
Now, both parties may agree the ad sucks, but for wildly different reasons. Before we get into it, let’s visit the ad in question:
Seems fine, right? Over the course of two minutes, Gillette uses its classic tagline “The Best A Man Can Get” to dissect bullying, the #MeToo movement, homophobia, and the other ways toxic masculinity is prevalent in our society. People have praised Gillette for its bravery and for using this ad to spread what, on the surface, seems to be a pretty positive message about men setting good examples for future generations.
But not so fast, because we're smarter than taking everything brands say at face value. On the left, people quickly pointed out how corporate companies like Gillette will use social activism to sell products, without implementing those morals in their business models. Instead, corporate companies will continue to engage in oppressive forms of capitalism that ultimately still hurt women. With me so far?
And then there are those on the other side of the aisle, who are pissed that a razor company is trying to tell people to be less... awful? Moralizing brands are annoying, but these critics are going as far as to say Gillette is criminalizing the existence of men and "perverting masculinity." Sure, Candace Owens.
Regardless of how you feel about the ad, it clearly has been ratio'd by the general public. As of this post, it has 380,000 dislikes on YouTube versus its 104,000 likes. Yikes. On the bright side, the video has more than 4 million views.
