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I'm assuming I don't have to link to any of Isaiah Mustafah's Old Spice commercials, and that you've seen them all.
First, let me just make the comment on how it's changing my perception of the brand. I thought of Old Spice as the deodorant that my grandfather used.
Now I'm thinking, "Oh, right -- my grandfather killed a bunch of Nazis, didn't he?"
Anyway.
One of my favorite terms to use when doing feminist critiques of media is "agency" -- specifically the agency of women. In the medium, are women active participants or passive prizes?
In the Axe Body Wash commercials, women have no agency. If you (and "you" means "a male" -- the commercials ignore the possibility that half their audience might be female; females don't exist as PEOPLE in those commercials) use Axe, women will flock to you without any free will of their own. Women aren't people; they're prizes.
In the Old Spice commercials, "Ladies: Look at your man. Now look at me. Now look at your man."
It's addressed to women, with the impression that WOMEN are people who can make choices. It's not terribly feminist, yes, but there IS a difference between the commercials for men's deodorant which treat women as props and these, which at least make a nod to the idea that women are people. We can talk about how terribly heteronormative they are, but the fact that they at least acknowledge that women exist as sapient beings is a huge step forward for men's grooming product advertisements.
First, let me just make the comment on how it's changing my perception of the brand. I thought of Old Spice as the deodorant that my grandfather used.
Now I'm thinking, "Oh, right -- my grandfather killed a bunch of Nazis, didn't he?"
Anyway.
One of my favorite terms to use when doing feminist critiques of media is "agency" -- specifically the agency of women. In the medium, are women active participants or passive prizes?
In the Axe Body Wash commercials, women have no agency. If you (and "you" means "a male" -- the commercials ignore the possibility that half their audience might be female; females don't exist as PEOPLE in those commercials) use Axe, women will flock to you without any free will of their own. Women aren't people; they're prizes.
In the Old Spice commercials, "Ladies: Look at your man. Now look at me. Now look at your man."
It's addressed to women, with the impression that WOMEN are people who can make choices. It's not terribly feminist, yes, but there IS a difference between the commercials for men's deodorant which treat women as props and these, which at least make a nod to the idea that women are people. We can talk about how terribly heteronormative they are, but the fact that they at least acknowledge that women exist as sapient beings is a huge step forward for men's grooming product advertisements.