To be sure, men are capable of being brutes and bullies. However culturally incorrect it may be say it, as a sex we do need to be civilized. I write this of a man of some experience. My vocation as a teacher allows me to observe the transformation of young bachelors into young married men. There is a civilizing process that takes place. My wife civilized me. It is the way things are. So, all civilized males affirm with the commercial that sexual harassment is wrong. Christians further affirm their duty in Christ to love their female neighbors as themselves and to love their sisters in Christ as Christ loved the church.

Gillette, a subsidiary of the multi-national corporation, Procter and Gamble (P&G), has released a controversial new ad ostensibly exercising the new ethos of corporate responsibility to instruct men as to what genuine masculinity is and how they ought to behave. If the intent of the ad was to stir debate, it has been successful. There are varieties of advertisements but we may fairly lump them into two categories: sales and branding. This ad clearly belongs to the latter category. It is intended to position Gillette as a socially aware, sexually enlightened, up-to-date company.

Before I criticize the ad—and there is much to criticize—let me assure you gentle reader that this no brief for bullies or brutes. I have mostly avoided engaging with the “biblical masculinity” movement. At least some of the more public advocates of (e.g., Mark Driscoll) have demonstrated that they have not a clue as to what Scripture requires of men. I have no sympathy whatever for the “biblical patriarchy” movement nor for a theologically and historically sloppy “Eternal Subordination” arguments of some complementarians. The “Biblical patriarchy”  movement is typically attached to the theonomic ethic, i.e., the unbiblical and un-Reformed view that the civil laws and punishments instituted under Moses are still in force and ought to be executed by the civil magistrate. That is a flat contradiction of Westminster Confession of Faith 19.4:

To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

“Patriarchalism” is a loaded term that signifies different things to different people but by it I mean the mistake of not accounting for the progress of redemptive history. There was a divinely instituted patriarchy under the period of types and shadows (the Old Testament), which expired with the rest of the types and shadows. Jesus is the federal head of all believers. There is a “headship” principle to be observed in the church and family but there is no longer a divinely sanctioned state-church or a theocratic state. In 1 Timothy 2:11–15, Paul grounds his principle in creation and in Ephesians 5:22–33 in grace. We will return to the latter passage next time.

A video commercial, even a long one (1:49), is a series of evocative images intended to connect with the viewer at an emotional, visceral level. This is what video does. Oral and written communication tends to reach the hearer and reader first via the intellect and then, perhaps, in the affections. This is why interpreting films is so different from interpreting written texts. There is a degree of ambiguity inherent in visual communication that does not quite exist in oral or written communication. Because the images are inherently emotive, the viewer interprets them in light of his (or her) experience. Women who have been the target of sexual harassment identify with the ad’s repudiation of it. My entirely unscientific survey of responses suggests that female viewers tend to interpret the commercial sympathetically while male viewers tend to be more negative toward the ad. This is interesting because ostensibly the commercial is a message, a mini-sermon, to men exhorting them not to be brutes and bullies. It is quite likely, however, that this slick, expensive commercial was certainly tested in “focus groups” (small groups of consumers selected according to age, sex, ethnicity, gender identity etc) to determine how people would respond. P&G knew what sort of response this ad would bring before they released it and its real target was mostly likely not males but females. Hence it begins with the “me too’ phenomenon and proceeds to portray males is a mostly negative light.

To be sure, men are capable of being brutes and bullies. However culturally incorrect it may be say it, as a sex we do need to be civilized. I write this of a man of some experience. My vocation as a teacher allows me to observe the transformation of young bachelors into young married men. There is a civilizing process that takes place. My wife civilized me. It is the way things are. So, all civilized males affirm with the commercial that sexual harassment is wrong. Christians further affirm their duty in Christ to love their female neighbors as themselves and to love their sisters in Christ as Christ loved the church.

Still, the ad is offensive for a variety of reasons. We need to view advertisement critically (in the sense of evaluating its message and methods). Like nearly all ads, this ad is manipulative. It ties images of ugly behavior, patronizing behavior (the corporate male places his hand on the shoulder of a corporate female thereby symbolically subordinating her and proceeds to “mansplain” her point for her) which grab the emotions, to a message intended to brand a product as allied with a socially progressive movement aimed at eradicating the ugly behavior. In short, the company wants to create the impression, rooted in the emotions and even the psyche, that buying Gillette razors is a way of turning back brutish behavior in men.

Perhaps the most offensive portion of the commercial features two little boys who are momentarily shown tussling. The commercial jumps to men saying, “boys will be boys,” at which point the narrator solemnly intones, “but something finally changed.” The visual cuts to a newscaster talking about “sexual harassment.” Here, the ad turns on an equivocation. “Boys will be boys” becomes code for “men are brutes and sometimes sexually harass women but they excuse it by saying ‘boys will be boys.’” Visually, verbally, visererally it equates two boys doing what boys do—rough housing—with sexual harrassment.

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