Last week, one of the nation’s largest manufacturer of razors and shaving paraphernalia uploaded a two-minute long video to their YouTube channel. The video addressed their primary customer base - men. If the shaving Goliath was hoping to reach their target, they certainly have. Men all over the US have seemingly been discussing the video nonstop since it was produced, but it seems that men are relatively split on whether the video is offensive or productive.
The video opens with a montage of boys and men exhibiting aggressive, (purported-to-be) masculine behaviors, such as verbal and physical bullying, sexual assault, and rape. It is not a coincidence that they generalize all of those behaviors, branding them all ‘toxic masculinity’ instead of separating verbal bullying from violent rape. In an effort to gain support from feminists, the montage includes newscasters mentioning the terms “MeToo Movement” and “Toxic Masculinity”. We could all agree that all of those toxic behaviors ought to be condemned by every individual, regardless of gender. The narrator speaks over the montage: “Is this the best a man can get?” (which is the company's tagline).
Throughout the video, the men are constantly excusing all of their toxic behaviors with the cliche, “boys will be boys”. The video even includes a classic man-splaining scene! It’s fantastic!
The last part of the video takes a more positive tone, though. Men magically seem to begin policing themselves. They show five men breaking up fights and empowering females and feminine behavior. And three of those ‘good’ men are black! The social justice was so encouraging!
The next scene is where the video takes a bigoted turn, though. The narrator optimistically speaks over the montage of the school-age boys in the video as the ad is wrapping up “....because the boys watching today…...will be the men of tomorrow.”
Excuse me??
The video totally disregards the increasing amount of boys who choose to transition to female, those who dress in drag, those who identify as female or non-binary or fluid-gender, and all other orientations!
This pathetic video that this massive corporation tried to sell to gain some female customers just shows that they are truly bigots who don’t care about social justice or the LGBT community at all! Gillette and Procter & Gamble (their parents company) should be ashamed of themselves. I encourage all of us to boycott all of their products from now on.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views held by The Liberty Block or any of its contributors or members.
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