Is This the Best a Man Can Get?

Last week, Gillette unveiled their new, razor-sharp take on their slogan ‘the best a man can get.’ Montaging the toxicity which can sometimes fester within what it means to be masculine, the ad warns of the consequence of men who misread the rules, who ignore the rules and who make their own rules. It is clear that the brand is no longer talking about blades, and instead exploring the reality of the phrase ‘boys will be boys.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0

So enraging was the message of the ad, that it was cause for even Piers Morgan to momentarily refrain from hurtling abuse at vegans. ‘Let boys be damn boys,’ he furiously tweeted, ‘Let men be damn men.’ His belligerent boys club of followers cited the video as emasculating and virtue-signalling as Gad Saad reassured the masses that ‘being a man is not a disease or a pathology.’ With over 23 million views on YouTube, the masses obviously shared this (wilful?) misconstruction of the advertisement’s message, disliking the video 1 million times – a stark contrast to the 633,000 who liked it.

Do they have a point? Is there an ‘incessant poisonous war‘ on masculinity? Piers seems to think so.

In an extensive column for the Daily Mail, Morgan brands the Gillette campaign as pathetic, as vindictive, as an ugly exercise in hypocritical sexism and as a traitorous indulgence in radical feminism. He summarises his opinion of the brand with the crude analogy that ‘Gillette have just cut their own throat.’ To believe that Morgan’s comments hold any weight is a deliberate disregard for the truth and undeniable displacement of pent up anger. While Piers makes himself dizzy by gaslighting people online, it is recommendable to just mute him. Where he screeches smoke, the only fire is that of his inflamed ego.

Gillette, despite what Twitter craves to believe, is not forging it’s allegiance to pseudo-feminism and it’s not attempting to humiliate men. The brand knows there is goodness in men – it is blatantly not refuting that, instead it is articulating what the consequences are when only some men demonstrate that goodness. It states that ‘some, is not enough,’ that ‘men need to hold other men accountable’ for their lapse in goodness and in humanity.

Psychologist Terry Kupers defines toxic masculinity as a ‘constellation of traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence.’ It is saying ‘boys will be boys’ in a case of sexual assault or violence. It is the escalating suicide rates in Irish men because ‘boys don’t cry.’ It is the stifling of vulnerabilities, of insecurities and of traits or interests perceived as ‘feminine.’ It is believing ‘gay’ is an unimaginable insult and it is the inaction when a girl is getting groped in a club. The problem is not men or masculinity, it is the consequences of internalising a narrative that men cannot ever show weakness.

Gillette is not attempting to convert the bad men – the Morgans, the Weinsteins, the Spaceys. It is delivering a message to the good men, to the good men who perhaps have done bad things, to the, as Hannah Gadsby put it, ‘garden-variety consent dyslexics.’ Morally, there is obviously little room for transgression within these categories but, as far as accountability goes, there is usually a very large margin for error. Gadsby, in her speech for the 2018 Women in Entertainment Awards, signalled that we need to refine these blurred lines. She discussed how we ‘need to talk about how good men have a line for every occasion, a line for the locker room… a line for when their wives, mothers, sisters, daughters are watching,’ a line for drunken nights out, a line for friends and another for strangers. Gadsby remarks on how it is only ever good men who draw this line and ‘guess what? All. Men. Believe. They. Are. Good.’ Of course they do, because the line has been moved so they, therefore, did not cross that line into ‘bad man’ territory.

No one wakes up in the morning and decides that today, they will ignore the behaviour of a friend towards a girl on the street but tomorrow, they will abhor the actions of cat-callers as they walk through town. Accountability is all Gillette wants to foster amongst men. Not shame, not humiliation and not anger that their masculinity is suddenly a pathology. The hatred surrounding the ad is not a fury that is derived from feeling you are hard-done-by, it is a fearful and indignant rage that is found in looking in the mirror and not liking what you see.

#Gender #Opinion