Charity Starts at Home: Gillette Commercial Addresses Male Toxicity

Gillette came for its own base demographics’ neck with a blockbuster ad. Y’all. This jawn was tough! Like tough to watch, in a good way. In a ‘we see the role we’ve played in toxic gender-based behavior and we not with the shits no more’ kind of way. Gillette just rebranded their entire corporate intention in one long-form commercial. In the Black South folks say, ‘charity starts at home’. Maaaaannnn, Gillette is trying to clean house with this one. They overtly came for their own.

First, by having a boy being hunted down by a group of young men literally bust through a screen projecting the 90s Gillette commercials of ‘manly men’ getting the girl. As if to question whether Gillette itself was ‘The Best A Man Can Get’; questioning if it was endorsing the toxic behaviors responsible for the recent (and overdue) rising tide of sexual misconduct and assault allegations. The image of a boy being held by his scared mother as he is surrounded by cyberbullying text messages; frightening and commonplace these days. The commercial shows out and shows off the (many) ways male-identified people have held sway over society by ‘might makes right’ and other subtle shows of force. Watching them play out on screen in all of those ways was staggering. Gillette’s marketing team is talking some serious (and overdue) smack to their bread and butter consumers. The media piece? With the TV showing a jury of men whistling at a woman then switching to the unwarranted domestic booty grabbing in fron…