Gillette — the best a man can get — is famous for their razors, and for putting as many blades as they possibly can in said razors.
This week, the Procter & Gamble brand stole the spotlight for another reason: Its latest ad campaign, titled “The best a man can be,” calls out some bad behaviors, including catcalling and sexual assault, and references the #MeToo movement.
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But the ad has attracted some controversy (if you can believe it). What some see as a popular brand using its huge platform to spread a positive message, others are interpreting as a vicious attack on an entire gender. So VICE News recreated the version that angry men online apparently saw.
If you look at the all-important YouTube metrics, the video has amassed more than 13 million views in three days and has 326,000 likes, compared to more than 700,000 dislikes on the platform.
Those numbers, however, are also part of the controversy. Commenters have accused the brand of deleting dislikes as well as negative comments.
“Not all men” is the sentiment most online commenters seem to be espousing — and that they won’t be lectured to. Prominent British man-defender Piers Morgan even wrote a column calling the ad the “worst attack on men this week” and said Gillette’s commercials, apparently until now, had “unashamedly celebrated men and masculinity.”
This segment originally aired January 16, 2019, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
