Does this man – make your man – feel inferior?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Old Spice ads. In what has been one of the most clever marketing campaigns this year, sales of Old Spice products have sky rocketed from a prolonged lull. No longer the scent of your dad, or just old men in general, the adverts featuring ebony adonis Isaiah Mustafa have reinvigorated the Old Spice brand.
This advert is an egregious play on hyper-masculine stereotypes. The caption underneath this video on Youtube is as follows: “We’re not saying this body wash will make your man smell into a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it.
Surely, then, it is only a matter of time before Jo Swinson and Lynne Featherstone condemn these adverts? Afterall Old Spice openly mocks their consumers for not being able to ever look like Mustafa. Previously when criticising the “Real Women” campaign I was not over-inundated with adverts displaying the male equivalent. Some would interpret this as rendering my arguments invalid.
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However, were a Victoria’s Secret model to star in an advert admitting she has a level of beauty unattainable to most of the female population I happily wager that Swinson and Featherstone would condemn it within hours.
If I apply the narrative that was used to defend the Real Woman campaign to the Old Spice ads it goes something like this: “The self esteem of young boys might be harmed when they realise they can’t swan dive into a hot tub which has a motorcycle in it. These adverts should contain a warning that Mustafa has only be able to accomplish these feats with the aid of computer alteration. What about our SONS?!?! Will no one think of the Children?!”
Obviously that’s completely ludicrous.
Luckily something tells me there won’t be a motion at Conference condemning the Old Spice ads. But sadly, I fear it won’t be because they’ve come to the conclusion that politicians shouldn’t be responsible for our self-esteem. I would pity the poor souls who open their mail if they were. Can you imagine:
Dear Michael Gove*,
This month’s Cosmo came out to day and I’m feeling a bit shit…
Kind Regards,
Sara Scarlett
[*My local MP. Aren't I lucky...]
The fact of the matter is there won’t be the same out-cry over the Old Spice ads because even if they’re making men all over the western world feel inferior - men don’t like to victimise themselves in the same way women do. The Real Woman campaign completely codified the collective self-pity of a fraction of women. It was wrapped in a bunch of other, more worthy, issues to shove it through conference. It sent out the message that it was okay to absolve yourself of responsibility for your own self-esteem; a message that does women no favours.
Having seen candids (un-airbrushed paparazzi pics) of Isaiah Mustafa – I can attest to the fact that he is as lovely without the aid of computer wizardry as he is in the Old Spice ads. In the same way that Elle MacPherson is stunning in candids too. So until good looks can be redistibuted equally there’s no escaping the reality that some people are just better looking than others. No amount of nannying from busy-body politicians is going change that.
August 17th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
To be absolutely fair – which as this blog post is rather amusing I hate doing – the role of the idealised male body form in popular culture has already been endlessly mocked or otherwise diminished. To pick two examples out of the air: there’s a scene in Fight Club in which the narrator aggressively says ‘Do real men look like that?’ about a Calvin Klein advert while sporting all manner of scars and glaring at fellow bus-users; and in The Full Monty the fat character has a crisis of confidence over his weight, over which he is immediately consoled by his wife. You could take this to imply that real men don’t care about looks because women don’t, and that they should care more about their reputation. The equivalent for women would be something like Shallow Hal, in which Jack Black’s rejection of a fat chick is portrayed as morally reprehensible but understandable.
To put it another way, a greater part of the popular notion of female identity is bound up in image, whereas the popular notion of male identity has more bound up with social status. The equivalent of an anti-airbrushing campaign for men wouldn’t refer to body image, but rather focusing on the notion that if a man isn’t an international footballer by the age of 20 he’s a failure.
August 17th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
You have a blog tag entitled “Beautiful Men”? :-0
August 18th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Dick P – we didn’t until now (!)
August 18th, 2010 at 10:27 am
adam. don’t you think you’re taking this a bit seriously? stop being such an old woman
August 18th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
At the risk of being awkward, as someone who has been forced to become expert in tracking the chemical content of such products and what they do inside the body, I have learned some interesting things. One is that many male cosmetics and deodorants have strong effects on the male reproductive systems and allied functions. So whatever they are about or intended to do, one of the unintended consequences is to quarantee an absence of effective male characteristics in their use.
August 18th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Demetrius, thank you for making a completely irrelevent comment to my blog post.
August 18th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
“I’m on a horse!”
Very clever ad this, as for your point on double standards check out the advert for Plenty kitchen roll with the random dude in a sombrero. Theres a pointless closeup of his arse when he bends over to clean with the woman staring admiringly as he works, imagine the same advert with the sexes changed!
August 18th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
I like this ad. It is very funny and very cleverly done.
Sara says that “men don’t like to victimise themselves in the same way some women do” well I agree that men and women do behave differently when compared to the idealised image of their gender but why is this? Both men and women feel envious maybe at time inferior too but on the whole men do not feel inadequate because there are better looking men than themselves out there.
The Lib Dem real woman campaign is ridicules. Not only does it patronise women but it also accepts and panders to women’s insecurities. Well done to all who spoke against it and voted against it.
Think I’ll nip out now and buy some old spice….Anyone know Isaiah’s number?
August 20th, 2010 at 8:05 am
“… on the whole men do not feel inadequate because there are better looking men than themselves out there.”
I do. On the whole men are so programmed with braggadoccio, so focussed on believing their weaknesses to be strengths that they are incapable of recognising when they feel inadequate. there is an inverse relationship between self-esteem and self-awareness. See also Dunning-Kruger syndrome.