Instead of affirming the idea that husbands and wives cooperate to raise a child, this commercial affirms the idea that women nurture their children alone. Her husband is not her partner; he is just another human in the home whom she is responsible for nurturing. Women, then, are mothers and wives whose sole job is to nurture children and husbands. Accordingly, the husband and the child are, inevitably, pitted against one another.
Comments 15
John — April 10, 2009
"Mr. Wilkinson, I have Dr. Freud on line 1."
Angela — April 10, 2009
wow... every commercial I've seen from this brand of razors (and this make the third one) has been potentially offensive.
Meredith — April 10, 2009
Wilkinson Sword is particularly pernicious in their advertising. See the "Mow the Lawn" ad for their biking trimmer. It's absolutely horrifying. There's also one in which a man rubs a woman's hairy legs (against her will ... she is clearly fighting him off), and his horrified, shocked reaction to the hairy legs causes a bus accident. Ugh.
Meredith — April 10, 2009
Oops. "Bikini" trimmer. Not biking. I guess you can see what I write about more often.
FilthyGrandeur — April 10, 2009
so, men are furniture?
i love how this is also reaffirming ideas of masculinity, competing for a woman's affections, and the only way to settle it is to fight. ugh. what if the baby was a girl?
Umlud — April 10, 2009
I also like how - in reality - all the training the baby does would most likely result in less-smooth skin...
Umlud — April 10, 2009
Oh, and "in reality" was meant with all the sarcasm due to the silliness of the context.
waxghost — April 10, 2009
This reminds me of the retro ad that was put up here recently that implied that women have to fight with their daughters for their husband's affections, except with the genders reversed. Very interesting.
Emma — April 10, 2009
Oh bloody hell this is horrible. What is up with Wilkinson Sword, they've had some horrendous commercials lately.
chuk — April 11, 2009
At first I was like, "this is totally going to disgust me," and it does. But watching that baby train and do karate was very entertaining.
I'm torn between going on at length about how troubled I am by how so many heterosexual couples (and some queer couples) conceive of and act out their relationships, or just sitting back and resuming chukling to myself because the baby is so cute and silly.
Miriam — April 12, 2009
1. Ew.
2. The husband looked better with scruff. Yum!
N. — April 12, 2009
Oedipal complex much? Cartoon or not, the concept is so, so offensive, on so many levels. Yuck.
a.james — April 13, 2009
there's also an underlying "The baby is now ignored" concept that uneases me.
The husband wants his wife's affections, but is ignored because of the baby. Now that his skin is "as smooth as a baby's", the wife and mother lavishes him with affections. Humorously, it leaves the baby with enough time to train in secret and challenge his father. But the underlying context feels like, "if your wife /loves/ you she will stop caring about that stupid baby and come to bed with you." Horray neglect, so long as it doesn't forfeit the sex.
Also, while they try to be "funny" about it, the concept of a grown-man fighting a /baby/ is just a Bad Message. Sure, they make the baby the "aggressor" and attack the father, but the commercial also strokes men's jealousy of a newborn. I don't have specific statistics on hand, but my recollection seems that men overwhelmingly hit and shake babies when they can no longer handle the constant need for care and attention [as well as near-constant crying and a lack of understanding language or social properness]...in a world where there are many striking and brutal cases of fathers acting cruelly to babies they are "just fed up" with, is any time a "good time" or "funny time" to showcase father/son violence?
Dubi — April 14, 2009
Here's how humour works: you take a situation that needs no explaining (humour needs to be fast, or it becomes tedious), and add a surprising twist to it. Stereotypes are an inevitable part of humour, because they're a handy shorthand for situations.
If I may speak as the party who's supposed to be offended here (a father), I'm not. I understand what it is that you think should be deemed offensive, but don't think it should be deemed as such. It's humour, and quite reasonably executed, in my opinion (although, the Matrix reference - really, stop that already).
Also, a.james - FATHERS are not more prone to be abusive of babies than mothers are. (although, of course, men don't get to have post-natal depression, so we get full blame for our aggressive behaiour, while some women are allowed more slack. Note for the obvious critics: I am not saying post-natal depression is a fallacy. Quite the opposite).
Doctress Julia — April 26, 2009
Uh, way to blow off everyone who finds this offensive (not because we think we SHOULD be offended, we are- and this is offensive.), Dubi. And, the whole 'lighten up, it's humor' thing is played out.