xiphias: (Default)
[personal profile] xiphias
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.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 12:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] browngirl.livejournal.com
True and true. I was talking to the Media Studies major who's interning at my work this summer about just that, the presence and agency of women and nonWhite people in advertising.

(Plus, Mr. Mustafah makes my glad I can see.)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 01:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ailsaek.livejournal.com
And that married women are generally the ones doing the grocery shopping. Smart.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 01:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vvalkyri.livejournal.com
This. [livejournal.com profile] xiphias makes an interesting point about this ad being unusual in how it treats women, but OTOH it was probably more motivated by "wait, who buys the bodywash?" rather than "wait, why do we keep treating women this way?"

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com
Personally, I care less about what motivated it, and more about what the result is.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sashajwolf.livejournal.com
Seriously, people buy personal hygiene products for other people without asking what brand they want? That's so alien to me that it boggles me somewhat. In our household, I do the grocery shopping, but the adults each buy their own hygiene products. The kids tell us what brands they like or want to try, and we buy those, within acceptable financial limits. In the household I grew up in, all the shopping was done by the same person - which of us it was varied over time, depending on who was working and who wasn't - but again, the person doing the shopping asked the others what brands they wanted. The idea of choosing something so personal for someone else is actually squicky to me.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vvalkyri.livejournal.com
"Oh honey, they had this new stuff that looked interesting. Tell me what you think!"

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 04:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kerrypolka.livejournal.com
Yes, this is what I picture, not "THIS IS YOUR DEODORANT AND YOU WILL LIKE IT" or anything!

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 03:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] horizonchaser.livejournal.com
I don't know, my Mom never asked us what we wanted, personal hygiene wise. We got Lava soap, Crest, Right Guard underarm stuff, and No-Name Brand shampoo. (Also Aquanet Hairspray, I don't know why, it only ever got used to make flamethrowers and kill bugs.) When we asked for whatever was hot at the time, she'd remind us we had our own money. Being cheap teenagers... we used what Mom bought.

My older son, I'd ask him what he wanted for smelly stuff, and it always boiled down to "what did you get me last time? That." But shampoo and the like, it's whatever I bought. He rarely had any interest in what was commercial and cool, still doesn't.

My husband only has a few preferences, otherwise, I just get him what I like. I'm the one that has to smell him, after all!

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 03:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] paper-crystals.livejournal.com
That was pretty much my situation too. I was first really introduced to personal hyrgene products as a personal choice when I started having boyfriends who wore perfume.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 03:42 pm (UTC)
ailbhe: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ailbhe
Yes. There's a massive trope that women choose Their Man's clothes, underwear, shampoo, aftershave, razor, and what foods will be available to the household, all under the umbrella of being The Mother. I know several families who do actually live this way, though not so many where the adults are of my generation, thankfully. They tend to be the same ones who routinely lie to each other about eg how much this coat cost or whether they stopped off for fast food on the way home from work. It's one of the things - like cleaning product adverts - which shoves work into the woman's domain by infantilising men. Drives me nuts.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 05:02 pm (UTC)
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
From: [personal profile] redbird
The closest to that I'm aware of is "oh, I don't care, whatever you're using." Plenty of households use one kind of soap in the bathroom, for example, and I suspect it's common that at most one person has a preference, so they go with that. [livejournal.com profile] cattitude and I use the same shampoo.

I suspect that deodorant is more culturally gendered than soap or toothpaste, though. But I may not be the best witness here, given how little television and hence advertising I see, among other things. (For ages, Cattitude was using the one I used to use; he stopped only because they seem to no longer be making that variety. (I had switched to an unscented one from the same manufacturer.))

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-16 08:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sashajwolf.livejournal.com
We have two soaps in the bathroom, and everyone seems to be happy with one or the other. I think we currently have three different toothpastes (between six people.) [livejournal.com profile] djm4 and I use the same shower gel, but everyone else has their own. I can't think of anything else that we share.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 01:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] horizonchaser.livejournal.com
Very true. I'd bought the "Axe" or "Tag" or whatever it was for the kid, until I happened to see one of their commercials. After staring in astonished shock for about half of it, I already had his new brand selected.

Most of the Moms, wives, and girlfriends I know do buy the man-no-stink stuff for the guys, the Old Spice commercials take that to a hilarious and really fun to watch level.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] plantmom.livejournal.com
I don't even watch t.v., and I know about the Old Spice ads. If there are no outtakes somewhere, that's okay, because honestly, I can easily imagine what they'd be like. If must be hard to film such things without guffawing all the way through.

Completely agree

Date: 2010-07-15 02:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] silvenstar.livejournal.com
I've made my husband use Old Spice since we first moved in together. I love how it smells. So seeing him addressing me makes me happy, since I'm the one that made the decision to smell that every day.

Re: Completely agree

Date: 2010-07-15 02:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com
It's interesting, because I didn't even THINK of the obvious fact that, in the majority of male-female households, the women make the purchasing decisions. Which, as you point out, makes it obvious who you should be marketing to.

In our household, I do almost all the shopping, and my wife tends to use either LUSH products or Doc Bronner's, and uses Mennen Speed Stick (not Lady Speed Stick, which she doesn't like as much). So I tend not to think about the gendered nature of shopping, except when advertisement makes it really, really obvious.

Re: Completely agree

Date: 2010-07-15 08:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] silvenstar.livejournal.com
No matter how equal we may become, some gender roles tend to stay the same. The only reason it's still that way in my house is because I do almost all of the cooking, since I'm a stay-at-home-mom.

On a side note, I used to use Secret Powder Fresh, but I recently swapped to a lavender scented one. It's not overpowering like most women's deodorants.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ookpik.livejournal.com
I haven't seen the commercials, but this makes me want to. (In any case, the one time that I bought Axe for D., we learned that its scent is one of the many that trigger my asthma.)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/oldspice

Probably the best single source for them.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com
I'm still a little baffled at why looking at someone I can't smell would make me want to buy a certain deodorant, but maybe that's just because I haven't seen the commercials.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 02:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com
It's 'cause you haven't seen the commercials.

"Ladies. Look at me. Look at your man. Now back at me again. Now back at your man. Does your man look like me? No. But could your man SMELL like me? Yes."

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 03:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] museinred.livejournal.com
Oh yeah, you have to see the commercials.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 03:17 pm (UTC)
ckd: small blue foam shark (Default)
From: [personal profile] ckd
Seriously, these commercials are funny enough that I go and seek them out instead of fast-forwarding past them on my DVR. That's the way to do advertising right.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 03:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] horizonchaser.livejournal.com
I don't watch TV either, but those commercials are worth youtubing for, they're hysterical, and he's just gorgeous to watch!

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 03:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] supremegoddess1.livejournal.com
I have to admit that I absolutely *love* the Old Spice ads. And I want to "borrow" Isaiah Mustafah for awhile.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 04:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kerrypolka.livejournal.com
Mightygodking has another good discussion of the commercials (specifically the most recent internet ones).

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 04:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tigertoy.livejournal.com
([livejournal.com profile] autographedcat pointed me here)

I don't watch TV -- mostly because of the ads -- but I saw one of these when I went to the movie theater.

My reaction was that the real message was for men, and it was the usual -- "You aren't worth anything as yourself. Your only hope to get a mate is to hide yourself in the image of this unattainable sex symbol, and look, we're selling a product that will do it! Just give us your money and you can paper over your inadequacy!" Yes, they're superficially addressing women, telling them their men are unattractive but this product can transmogrify them. I suppose it's a better message to women to tell them they have the power to choose to transmogrify their men rather than to just use the women as props to demonstrate the transmogrifying effect. I suppose it's better, if some guy walking by kicks me in the nuts, if he doesn't also spit on the woman standing nearby.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 04:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com
Yup! That's another way in which I consider these commercials a huge step forward for women. For once, there's a product that is telling men that we're inadequate and need material goods to make us okay.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tigertoy.livejournal.com
For once? Ads for stuff that men buy have featured improbably good looking women for as long as there have been visual ads, and they're always there to send the message "you can't get a woman like this unless you buy our product".

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-18 05:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] micheinnz.livejournal.com
Yeeeeeah, but I'm not sure that the way to equality it to make men as insecure about their bodies as so many women are.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-16 12:06 am (UTC)
batyatoon: (guess you've only my word for that)
From: [personal profile] batyatoon
So which is worse: "you can't get a woman like this unless you buy our product", or "you're a trophy for men who buy our product, unless you're not improbably good-looking in which case you aren't worth notice even as a trophy"?

Yeah, commercials that send any variant on this message kind of suck, but in general? The guy kicking you in the nuts isn't spitting on the woman standing nearby, he's stepping on her.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 04:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com
Thank you for resolving some vague rumbling guilty notions I've had about enjoying that ad campaign. My doubts are now quietened...

(No, not taking the mickey. BTW, I think the 2nd - 4th sentences of your entry deserve some sort of award...)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 07:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beaq.livejournal.com
Even the "not like a lady" line didn't entirely spoil the movie house ad for me. Even the assumption that I care about diamonds and horses and. I mean, the "meh" is there underneath, but it was just so stunning to be spoken *to*, by a desirable man, who was offering that desirability to *me*, to *consume*, for *my* pleasure, that, god help me, I actually loved the ad.

Of course it has to be funny and OTT, because everyone would laugh anyway. But the secret is it's appealing, not that it's funny.

Diamonds, for god's sake! And not diamonds-as-self-decoration or diamonds-being-sold-to-men-as-a-means-to-display-ownership. Piles of diamonds for me! To own! Piles! And horses!

I was just ... stunned. I see now why sex sells. If it's actually directed at you.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 07:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] adrian-turtle.livejournal.com
Yeah. Most of the time, I'd flinch from a sales pitch based on "you don't want to smell like a lady, do you?" This doesn't bother me. It's not the sexiness that does it for me...I think it's because he seems to be joking, making fun of the image of masculinity he's presenting.

(Yeah, I'm wearing Old Spice with a pink dress. Wanna make something of it?)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-16 12:07 am (UTC)
batyatoon: (...duuuude.)
From: [personal profile] batyatoon
And tickets to that thing you love!

It's true. It's really, really true.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-16 12:44 am (UTC)
ailbhe: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ailbhe
I disapprove of a whole lot of this stuff, but these specific ads are *brilliant*. OK, they assume I choose my partner's stuff. They use diamonds and horses and cake and waterfalls as examples of things women - me - like. Who cares? they are focussing on women and what women might like, not as a way of making women more attractive to men (most of the "pampering" crap, or lingerie, as well as the other uses for diamonds you mention) but just stuff women might like.

I don't fancy him. But I love the ads.

Shame I hate Old Spice.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 07:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] osewalrus.livejournal.com
I must be the only person who has never seen these ads and has no idea what this is about. But I've been kind of busy (sorry, came here through [livejournal.com profile] autographedcat

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-16 12:09 am (UTC)
batyatoon: (chibi!)
From: [personal profile] batyatoon
Likewise! On coming here through [livejournal.com profile] autographedcat, not on not having seen the ads.

([livejournal.com profile] osewalrus, you should check them out, they're hilarious.)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-16 03:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] felis-sidus.livejournal.com
You're not alone. I have the TV on most of the time, always on over-the-air broadcast channels, and I actually enjoy watching commercials. Yet I can't recall seeing a single Axe Body Wash commercial ever, or an Old Spice commercial in the past several years. Either I somehow managed to pick programs not sponsored by them or they so completely failed to impress me that I don't even remember seeing them.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-15 11:23 pm (UTC)
fauxklore: (Default)
From: [personal profile] fauxklore
The part of the commercial which doesn't work at all for me is that I don't find the model attractive.

Aside from his not matching my physical preferences, I don't need a man to create adventure or do things around the house for me.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-07-17 10:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fitfool.livejournal.com
I had not seen the Old Spice commercials before and then I blew a good half hour looking up the ad, watching videos on The Making Of..., and watching some of those responses. I don't usually pay much attention to ads but I'm really impressed by all that went into making that ad.

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