If Mort Divine ruled the world

[HamburgerBoy]

To be fair, I doubt that advert companies are massive rape dens either. Maybe some pussy-for-play action but the real problem isn't the advertisement itself, which I certainly don't take any personal offense to, as much as it is how it's a blatantly politically-crafted propaganda piece that feeds into typical leftist narratives. It doesn't effectively target where violence is most significant among males. Wake me up when Lenny Kravitz makes a commercial about his fellow African-Americans and how black men need to step up and stop disproportionately committing all forms of violent crime in the country, including against women.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

They know some people will be offended. They know others, probably more than the prior in this climate, will give them enormous props and even switch to their brand. Can we really fault an entity for profit if they uh... Try to make more profit? It's not a government agency for fucks sake it's a razor company.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Governments and corporations have never been closer in American history. I don't know what favors P&G owes, but certainly all the tech and pharma companies push this bullshit under political pressure to.

 

[CiG]

They know some people will be offended. They know others, probably more than the prior in this climate, will give them enormous props and even switch to their brand. Can we really fault an entity for profit if they uh... Try to make more profit? It's not a government agency for fucks sake it's a razor company.

If a company who predominantly sell to men think shitting on men for political points will make them more profit, all power to them but somehow I think that's pretty autistic. Gaming companies are already experiencing the results of such a stupid idea.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Don't get me wrong I know orgs are in bed with each other left and right but we are far from a point where it's harmful to the general public. Nobody is being forced to use these products and the currently existing product doesn't have "ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS" emblazoned on the side of it or anything. It's a money grab. It's controversial enough to gain new customers, but safe enough to keep most existing customers - the product is unchanged and performs just as well as last month.

 

[CiG]

Completely disagree, I think it was a bad move if their aim is to gain more customers and make more money. It was quite blatantly a political virtue-signal. It's like when they created female Thor in comic books and all the lefties got behind it and shat on the people complaining, then when it came time to buy the new books the lefties overwhelmingly didn't support it, the uncaring centrists bought it and the people who were shat on didn't support it, so overall it lost money.

Political virtue signalling that simultaneously alienates the main consumer base is to me total idiocy. I would never do it as a business owner to my own company, it makes no sense at all. What, are feminist females going to now flood Gillette?

I guess we'll just wait for the inevitable numbers.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Yes I'm curious as well. That's my primary interest in this case lol.

I stand by my words still. Razors are genderless if you're an intelligent bargain shopper, and not nearly a sexy enough consumable for people to brag about what brand they use over anything other than pure functionality.

 

[CiG]

That's why they shouldn't have risked this. Their products are easily replaced by a billion other companies not spewing political propaganda.

 

[Mort Divine]

Lenny Kravitz

 

[CiG]

 

[Bloopy]

The trap is that it shames men not into respecting women (most already do to varying degrees) but that it specifically shames men into supporting #MeToo which is an entirely different thing. It also implies that there is a #RapeCulture where a minority of men need to stand up to some evil imagined majority, when we all know that statistics show that rapists and harassers aren't representative of men. If they really had any balls or sense of scope they'd have made the advert specifically targeting wealthy men, men in power, men of privilege and riches, they'd have called out Hollywood for example.

But no, same old shit, they just smear regular men with the actions of rich animals with no sense of boundaries. Fuck the advert on every level.

#MeToo became something like a commercialised pop version of itself. The mention of it in the ad reminds me that all that shit behaviour exists, but doesn't compell me to bandwagon on internet hysteria. To me the ad is just a clumsy attempt at repeating some sentiment that was already on our plates. I figure men offended by the ad would also fail to empathise with what it's like to regularly face casual misogyny. They can't relate their own outrage to that of their so-called enemy, let alone comprehend the cause and effect of their own country's culture and actions.

Advertising is rock bottom at the best of times though. Weasel words and off-target flashy bullshit with no substance. One I laughed at was this Ford Ranger ad which was banned in Australia. I couldn't care less about its fate. Anyone swayed into purchasing by such a ridiculous ad has already huffed gas beyond the point of no return.

 

[Einherjar86]

What makes you a privileged white guy?

Primarily my class and opportunities, but also my skin color.

To give an example of what I mean by not taking offense due to privilege:

As a white guy, I'm not part of a demographic that has historically been regarded with suspicion when it comes to sexual crime. When black men see an ad associating them with rape, it's possible it registers a long history of general suspicion toward black males, from the Scottsboro Boys to Katie Robb's false accusation in 2001. We think we've come a long way, but the truth is that a lot of black men live under constant threat, in the back of their minds, of being accused of a violent or sex crime.

I consider it a privilege that I haven't had to live under that threat; and for that reason, I don't see the ad as personally offensive or accusatory.

And I'm also fully aware of how this racial concern complicates concerns over women's rights and the #MeToo movement. These social issues aren't always compatible, and we need to be sensitive and thoughtful about who's affected by certain narratives.

 

[The Ozzman]

What makes you a privileged white guy?

His professors telling him he is

 

[CiG]

#MeToo became something like a commercialised pop version of itself. The mention of it in the ad reminds me that all that shit behaviour exists, but doesn't compell me to bandwagon on internet hysteria. To me the ad is just a clumsy attempt at repeating some sentiment that was already on our plates. I figure men offended by the ad would also fail to empathise with what it's like to regularly face casual misogyny. They can't relate their own outrage to that of their so-called enemy, let alone comprehend the cause and effect of their own country's culture and actions.

The advert repeats the "boys will be boys" narrative which implies that what it means to be a boy is to be a violent rapist or something. That advert is an example of casual misandry.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Primarily my class and opportunities, but also my skin color.

To give an example of what I mean by not taking offense due to privilege:

As a white guy, I'm not part of a demographic that has historically been regarded with suspicion when it comes to sexual crime. When black men see an ad associating them with rape, it's possible it registers a long history of general suspicion toward black males, from the Scottsboro Boys to Katie Robb's false accusation in 2001. We think we've come a long way, but the truth is that a lot of black men live under constant threat, in the back of their minds, of being accused of a violent or sex crime.

I consider it a privilege that I haven't had to live under that threat; and for that reason, I don't see the ad as personally offensive or accusatory.

And I'm also fully aware of how this racial concern complicates concerns over women's rights and the #MeToo movement. These social issues aren't always compatible, and we need to be sensitive and thoughtful about who's affected by certain narratives.

lmao, those are surely the only cases where men were falsely accused of rape.

EDIT: How did you even decide to cherry-pick that obscure Katie Robb case?

Katie Robb, 19, 4912 Mortensen Road #101, told DPS on Aug. 28 that she was kidnapped from one of the busiest areas on campus. She said a group of black males then took her to a wooded area where they raped her.

The next day, Robb, sophomore in journalism and mass communication, told DPS officials she fabricated the allegations. No date for a disciplinary hearing is set for student conduct code violation, said Dean of Students Pete Englin.

That's the most benign false rape story I've ever heard. It's not even an accusation being that apparently no men were named.

 

[Einherjar86]

lmao, those are surely the only cases where men were falsely accused of rape.

EDIT: How did you even decide to cherry-pick that obscure Katie Robb case?

The purpose was for historical breadth--notice I said "from the Scottsboro Boys to Katie Robb." That's 1931 to 2001. I was implying that there's little reason for black men today to not feel under threat of accusation.

They're definitely not the only cases where men were falsely accused of rape; there have been countless accusations before, between, and after those dates. Are white men accused and guilty of rape? Absolutely--so are black men.

The point is that there's an explicit and material cultural history by which black men have served as scapegoats for white irresponsibility and mistrust. I'm not making it up. There's never been a cultural narrative that "all white men are rapists" (and the Gillette commercial isn't promoting such a narrative). There has, by contrast, been a cultural narrative that all black men are rapists.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

You must have missed my edit:

That's the most benign false rape story I've ever heard. It's not even an accusation being that apparently no men were named.

 

[CiG]

There's never been a cultural narrative that "all white men are rapists" (and the Gillette commercial isn't promoting such a narrative).

Nobody said the Gillette advert was racial, just sexist.

 

[rms]

you could, a black man intervenes twice to stop whitey,which I would argue was intended.

 

[Einherjar86]

You must have missed my edit:

I'm not sure I follow. No black men were named... by Robb? Of course not. It was a false accusation to begin with, so why would she have a name? All she said was that she was raped by unknown black assailants.

No names were mentioned in any news reports because there were no identifiable aggressors.

Maybe I'm not understand why that's important. Historically speaking, if a white woman accused a black man of rape, she didn't need to name the black man. The lynch mob would just find the most suitable scapegoat for the accusation.

Nobody said the Gillette advert was racial, just sexist.

I didn't mean to imply that anyone said that.