What the Hail?

The Gillette multi razor commercial has a white, young, good looking, confident, well groomed male leading the commercial asking good looking white women in the commercial about what type of body hair they like on men. Of course they all say well groomed, hairless men or else that would defeat the purpose of the commercial if they all said “We like all of our men to be hairy cavemen beasts”.  This commercial seems to be targeted at my demographic (young male, single, white) I think the single male is the big demographic they are going after, because if you are already in a relationship or married, you’re probably not as desperate to take on new measures to find a mate or partner. The ad also has a lot of half naked men that are very fit and muscular.  The commercial also uses famous celebrity Kate Upton, which definitely will grab any heterosexual male’s attention. The commercial ends with the head honcho actor saying “the night is yours”.  That last statement relates to the masculinity discourse, that all masculine men can conquer the world, be successful, be strong and tough, party all night and get any woman he so desires. And with the gillette razor shaving off our body hair, that will help us even further to get any women we want.  From the textbook, using the nursery rhyme as an example “Slugs and snails and puppy dog’s tails”, using the end quote “the night is yours” interpellates males into thinking I am a man, I am dominant and strong, I can do whatever I want to do, when I want, and nobody will question me, which is definitely not the same for women, even in today’s day an age unfortunately.

This commercial is most definitely successful in its attempts to represent the values of it’s target market.  Most heterosexual young men stereotypically are attracted to beautiful women, so using that method alone isn’t very original, but it always seems to work.  And in the commercial asking “What do women want?” which I know from personal experience, and I am sure most guys can agree, is a question we have shared amongst each other for as long as we’ve lived. I think, psychologically speaking, by and large sex/love and death are the two biggest motivating factors for everyone on this planet, not just men, so sexualizing the commercial definitely also gets our attention.

You can sell almost anything, an event, any random product, if you sexualize the way you advertise it.
References:

O’Shaughnessy, M. & Stadler, J. Media and Society. 179-191.