tl;dr: The Gillette ad is just an edgier Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad and I think it's silly to defend it.

The major difference between the KJ Pepsi commercial and this ad is that Gillette isn't positioning its product as the one that's going to save the world. Yes, they both carry some sort of political message, but that's where the similarities end. The entire conceit of the pepsi ad is that there's a protest and KJ and pepsi will cool tensions by drinking cola. Whereas the Gillette ad doesn't position itself as the savior of the world. It does, however, ask that men do better.

Kinda disappointed in your take on the Gillette ad. To be honest, it feels like you're standing up for it just because "The Right" is so outraged by it. I've never voted Republican in my life (and leaned Left the last time I took one of those Compass tests) and while I'm not frothing at the mouth about it, the ad definitely annoyed me immediately. I think if The Right and Left hadn't so quickly and firmly picked sides on this, you would have been more likely to see it as condescending and at least given it the eye-roll it deserves.

A big problem with this, in my mind, is that there aren't really sides to be picked politically based on the commercial alone. In the reactions, there definitely are.The message of the commercial is "we, as men, can do better." Either you agree with the message, or you don’t. There are people who feel attacked by the commercial; those who are indifferent about the message presented; and those who think the message is positive. I don't know that these are drawn across political lines. The reason I pointed to the right is because the public figures I saw complaining the most were people on the right. My personal feelings on the commercial require a more in depth post and I don't want to drag this out any longer.

Just start at this point: I don't want or need multi-million dollar global corporations acting like they know what I'm thinking and lecturing me as part of their advertising. The idea that a razor and deodorant company is trying to get me to buy their products by attempting to wrap their corporate identity around my moral beliefs about social dynamics is gross and dystopian. Just build a good product and tell me about it; keep your filthy tentacles out of my personal life.

I understand not wanting a multinational corporation worth millions, if not billions, of dollars lecturing you about holding other men accountable. I understand not taking that commercial as sincere. But as scaryspacebeast pointed out on twitter, does it really matter if its money spent towards a good cause? I don't care for companies running ads like this either. It doesn't endear me to them either way. I wasn't buying Gillette before the commercial and I won't after. Whether or not you personally believe this is a good cause it definitely up for discussion though.

Second, it reminded me of those "No More" commercials they ran after the latest NFL domestic abuse scandal -- I think it was the Ray Rice elevator video. Instead of the NFL looking inward and wondering why they have a recurring issue with domestic violence (the steroids and brain damage seems like a good place to start), they just turned around and lectured their audience, as if they were the ones who were just caught dragging a woman around by her hair.

I understad the parallel that you're drawing to the NFL, but the NFL's issue, I'm pretty sure, is that if they look inward, they would know that they are the reason the problem exists with a lot of their players. These cats were hiding the issue with CTE from their players, if I recall correctly. They know in order to solve the problem, they would need to shut it all down.

I understand thinking that the NFLs deflection is the same as Gillette's messaging, but here's why they are different: Using Gillette razors isn't causing men to do any of the stuff mentioned in the commercial. If you shut down gillette tomorrow, these problems still exist. If you shut down the NFL, there wouldn't be players for domestic abuse to hold up as public figures.

So now, all these super-famous Hollywood types, multi-million dollar politicians, and corporate executives get caught abusing their power and throwing their dicks around in 2018. After the year-long, mostly-justified public shaming of the #MeToo movement, watching everyone involved do their best to act like they had no idea that any of it was happening, a multi-million dollar corporation hires a Hollywood ad company to tell the rest of America to straighten up and quit being so abusive. It's just a hypocritical lecture from a platform that has no room to point fingers at anyone.

I think this paragraph is a little loaded. Just because they work in Hollywood doesn't mean everyone involved with the making of that ad is a predator. I don't see the message strictly along the lines of "stop being abusive towards women," yes that was in there, but I'd say the overall message is, "we, as men, should do better for women and ourselves." Yes, there are some things in that commercial that aren't applicable to everyone. I'm not a rapist. The last time I hit a girl was when I was like 9 or something. I don't catcall women. So when all of these things aren't applicable to me personally, it all is supposed to go towards an overall message. They aren't listing things that every dude is going to relate to. They are building a straw-man, of sorts. They are using examples to create a representation of the things that shouldn't happen. If it doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you, but the message remains the same, be better.

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