Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - The Best Men Can Be： An Autopsy

All Episodes

Previous Next

Jan. 18, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

15:36

The Best Men Can Be： An Autopsy

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Gillette's number one trending video, We Believe the Best Men Can Be, appears to have been dead on arrival, so I thought I'd do an autopsy on it, see if we can see why it struck a nerve with the general public.
	It gained 16 million views in four days and managed to rack up an impressive 829,000 downvotes in a 2-1 dislike-to-like ratio.
	240,000 comments mocked the authors of the commercial and voiced their objection to what was obviously an artificial attempt to engineer a cultural change in the target audience by a shift in messaging.
	I have no idea what the marketing team responsible for this expected by the subtle change, but I have trouble imagining that they were prepared for this kind of backlash, although on reflection, maybe they were.
	Instead of being presented with Gillette's familiar corporate slogan, the best a man can get, we instead are presented with the best men can be.
	Such a small change could easily be written off as insignificant in a boardroom of like-minded marketing executives, but when presented to the heterogeneity of the general public, something clearly has gone awry.
	Whether Gillette's marketing executives realized it or not, the small change to their slogan had enormous implications for the message that Gillette, the company, was transmitting.
	To say the best a man can get is to respect a man as a man, that he is an autonomous thinking human being with needs and desires of his own.
	It is to acknowledge his breeding and appeal directly to his standards as an artisan, even on a job as trivial as shaving one's own face.
	To speak in this manner was for Gillette as a company to approach their potential customer as his servant and not his master.
	To change this message from the best a man can get to the best men can be is to change not only the target of the message but its purpose entirely.
	Instead of approaching their potential customers with an offer, they are now approaching men at large as their tutor.
	Instead of speaking to individuals as salesmen, Gillette is now speaking to men in general as an authority on the subject of moral philosophy, an authority to which the general public does not appear to agree that Gillette possesses.
	To add insult to injury, the nature of the moral system that was presented was one with which the public at large is very familiar and already broadly rejects.
	Because Gillette's advert was not about men, Gillette's advert was about feminism.
	So naturally it doesn't even begin on a positive note.
	Before one has even watched the video, the description first mentions negative behaviours that are ascribed to men alone.
	Bullying, harassment, is that the best a man can get?
	Is this something that only men need to concern themselves with?
	A 2015 study found that a third of men had been sexually harassed in the workplace in the previous year, and a 2018 survey found that approximately 70% of female workers had suffered either workplace bullying or covert undermining by a female boss.
	And it's really interesting how most women prefer to have male bosses.
	The framing of Gillette's question regarding bullying and harassment implies that this is a gendered problem, which it isn't, and that it is appropriate for Gillette, a subsidiary of Procter Gamble that makes personal care products, to take the lead on solving it, which it's not.
	It's only by challenging ourselves to do more that we can get closer to our best, to say the right thing, to act the right way.
	Maybe it's just me, but taking life coaching from a razor manufacturer's marketing department feels like I'm taking moral instruction from Don Draper.
	And you know what happiness is?
	Happiness is the smell of a new car.
	I don't think I should be taking this kind of advice from people who, fundamentally, want me to purchase their product.
	But ultimately, it would have been different if Gillette had presented terms that were entirely consistent and spoke to an irresistible truth about what it is to be a man in the 21st century.
	Gillette's marketing team decided to lazily adopt the feminist conception of men and masculinity and project this at their customer base with the ivory tower assumption that the plebeians had not already heard these arguments and refuted them time and time again.
	Within six seconds, we are introduced to toxic masculinity and the Me Too movement.
	Bullying.
	The Me Too movement against sexual masculinity.
	Toxic masculinity is a phrase popularized by modern feminists to describe a range of behaviors that they consider negative that are traditionally considered to be male.
	And the Me Too movement itself is a backlash from women of all creeds to their exploitation by the great and powerful in Hollywood.
	And not long after becoming popular, the movement was hijacked by feminist activists, weaponized against men in general, with the most recent notable victim being left-wing socialist darling Bernie Sanders.
	What began as justified outrage at the mistreatment of women in high-powered industries by predators such as Harvey Weinstein has become one that targets a powerful man simply because he is a powerful man.
	At the beginning of January 2019, Bernie Sanders was forced to apologize twice to the Me Too movement for harassment that had allegedly occurred by someone else to someone else in his 2016 campaign.
	Me Too, a movement he had previously endorsed and championed, had now become one that, through the vessel of the New York Times, was attempting to undercut any potential bid he might have to become president.
	Gillette's short film then goes on to bombard the viewer with their interpretation of toxic masculinity by featuring a series of behaviors that are not gendered before showing us what appears to be a parody of, I guess, Al Bundy from sitcom Married with Children.
	That's very touching, honey.
	Now rub my feet.
	Hey, I wouldn't rub your feet if a genie popped out of me.
	Aren't you open?
	Sorry, ma'am, but unlike your mouth, we occasionally close.
	Well, let me explain.
	See, it's just like an elevator.
	There's a two-ton weight limit on this shit.
	This is bizarre because Al Bundy was an expression of what Bill Maher described as the quiet desperation of American husbands back in 2003.
	I think men are just tired of apologizing for being men, and I think women would be a lot happier if you'd stop making us apologize for it.
	Al Bundy was not a sexual predator.
	Al Bundy was beset by women on all sides haranguing him for something or other, or his wife harassing him for sex, to the point where Al Bundy and the other men of his neighborhood formed No Ma'am, an organization in which they could attempt to unionize against the domestic oppression of their own wives.
	Tonight's broadcast of The Masculine Feminist has been commandeered by the secret society No Ma'am, national organization of men against Amazonian masterhood.
	I would reveal my true identity, but for political reasons, I cannot.
	Gentlemen, although I cannot reveal my identity, I am also under the iron rule of a woman.
	Here's $10 for your cause.
	Your friend, B. Clinton.
	P.S. Don't Tell H, not her real name.
	But anyway, from here, we are whisked quickly to a corporate boardroom to hear about the struggles of a woman earning six figures a year and how she is being marginalized by her male boss and his mansplaining.
	The poor dear.
	She probably knows exactly how Al Bundy felt.
	It is implied that the cause of these negative behaviors began in childhood.
	We are shown two boys play fighting as the fathers watch approvingly and say, Boys will be boys, boys will be boys.
	And a long line of other fathers repeat the same mantra as if the phrase, boys will be boys, boys will be boys, is used to justify or excuse sexual assault, as feminists often mischaracterize it.
	Gillette pathologizes fatherhood itself, as the fathers are presented as wholesome and we are shown the phrase being used to explain the boisterous social behaviour boys and young men exhibit to one another, not towards women.
	What might seem irrational outside of this particular social setting is readily explainable when framed in the context of the instinctive behaviour of boys rough housing, behaviour that girls tend not to enjoy in the same way.
	But this understanding and acceptance of male behavioural traits is flatly rejected by feminists as being biological and gender essentialist, as the phrase causes people to construct gender stereotypes, which allows the formation of unconscious biases, which oversimplifies the problem of male behavioural traits and limits the full expression of children.
	Instead of recognising that boisterous behaviour is a facet of what it is to be a boy and then a man, feminism classifies it as a dysfunctional form of self-oppression that needs to be cured and categorizes these expressions as toxic masculinity.
	Yes, the gender constructs of man and woman are constructions to help social intercourse between males and females, and because of the defined boundaries of these constructs, there must necessarily be limits on the types of behaviour that they include to even recognize one from the other.
	This is okay, this is, in fact, how the old-fashioned pro-gender types want it to be.
	You know, so they can facilitate the business of having relationships with one another.
	But once Gillette has finished laying low modern masculinity, we are presented with Anna Kasparian, host of the far-left show The Young Turks, presenting allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment, along with a selection of real news shows, presumably talking about the same thing.
	This is the real introduction to the Me Too movement.
	But then something had changed.
	Well, the thing that had changed was the weaponization of sexual assault allegations via the Me Too movement, and apparently this form of social attack can be parlayed into believing in the best in men.
	And we are told that there will be no going back.
	And there will be no going back.
	Because we believe in the best in men.
	We are exhorted by Terry Cruz, a victim of sexual assault, that men need to hold other men accountable.
	Though Cruz's soundbite fits the narrative, it is another strange inclusion as Cruz joined the Me Too movement because he was sexually assaulted in 2016 by an unnamed but powerful Hollywood executive at a party in front of his wife.
	We can see a pattern emerging from the narrative Gillette is weaving, and it is easy to see that blaming this behaviour on men is terribly reductionist.
	The powerful sex predators of Hollywood are not even reflective of the other men in Hollywood, let alone men at large across the Western world.
	Gillette then treats us to a series of vignettes that at this point are nothing more than clichés.
	A young man asking a young woman to smile, presumably with the intent on striking up a conversation and asking her out on a date.
	A male feminist ally leaps to her defense and tells the guy not to disturb her.
	A man sees an attractive woman in a tight top walking down the street and begins to approach her, presumably with the intention of asking her for a number.
	But his male friend interrupts him and tells him that such a thing is Gillette seemed to believe that the women involved in their short clips have no social awareness at all and ignore that a woman might dress in the ways demonstrated specifically to attract attention.
	It is not the job of men to prevent one another from speaking to women, and it is not appropriate to suggest that women can't take ownership of their own choices or ability to rebuff unwelcome advances.
	These shorts aren't particularly perplexing as it seems that Gillette is suggesting that men should put all of the power of decision-making when it comes to their love lives in the hands of women.
	If a man cannot approach a woman with an invitation, then men must wait for women to approach them first.
	This is actually not how the overwhelming majority of women or men would prefer courtship to play out.
	As Psychology Today found in a 2011 survey, 93% of women preferred to be asked out on a date rather than be the one asking, and men overwhelmingly preferred to be the ones taking the initiative.
	In addition to this, men approaching women in day-to-day life with the intent on asking them out on dates is not a functional or moral equivalent to Harvey Weinstein imposing himself on aspiring actresses, and it is absolutely wrong for Gillette to suggest that it is.
	The case of Harvey Weinstein and his victims is a direct inversion of the power dynamics of a man approaching a woman and asking her for a date.
	It is also totally inappropriate for a corporation to try and impose itself between the normal interactions between men and women that make society function.
	It is not Gillette's business to have such a discussion and they are clearly not equipped to have it without causing widespread offence.
	Next, we are treated to a few viral videos of men being good men and fathers, which is nice, and then we are shown that older men are to intervene when they see younger men fighting.
	The boys will be boys' father says, so we treat each other okay.
	And well, he's just totally wrong.
	It is in fact how boys treat one another, and it's completely normal and does not do the boys any harm in the slightest.
	A 2010 study found that 60% of elementary age schoolboys participated in rough play voluntarily, with 40% saying that they preferred other games.
	It's an exciting form of competitive play and it helps the boys form social bonds and establish hierarchies within their social groups.
	It's also very easy for the boys to identify what is and what is not a play fight, as well as for adult men and women who had brothers growing up.
	However, women who did not have brothers growing up nearly always identified these play fights as real fights.
	Adults, especially women who aren't personally familiar with rough play, often try to stop rough housing because they don't want anyone to get hurt.
	But research tells us that overall, rough play turns into a real fight only about 1% of the time among elementary school boys.
	Women who don't understand men also fail to understand the reasons for their behaviour.
	Rough housing is an integral part of the socialization of a young man amongst his peers, but since this short film was made by feminist director Kim Gehrig,
	whose previous works include This Girl Can and Viva La Volva, I can't say that I'm overly surprised that the entire work is focused on women through a feminist narrative that pathologizes male behaviour as being universally negative and inappropriately and incorrectly connects young boys play fighting as being the cause of Harvey Weinstein's predatory behaviour.
	And what do boys watching today learn from Gillette?
	They learn that normal male behaviours are to be considered bad and are expected to internalize that their own impulses towards boisterous fun are shameful because a small fraction of women don't understand how men work.
	A feminist might call this self-hatred, but given how they view themselves as oppressed and can only evaluate the world through their warped lens of power dynamics, they would consider this simply to be redressing the balance.
	Women, after all, are the victims of men, and men need to do something about it.

▲