system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Gillette's "toxic masculinity" ad is insulting

Imagine, if you will, a new ad by Gillette:

An African American man looks into a mirror, visibly dismayed. In the background you hear phrases taken from news clips; "*drive-by shooting, gang violence, an armed robbery, black crime rates..."*

The narrator speaks over the brand's logo: **"Is this the best black people can get?"**

A black boy is seen chased by older black kids, threatening to beat him up.

**"Is it?"**

A mother is seen clutching her crying child, as more snippets of black social issues are played *"black incarceration rates, deadbeat dads..."*

**"We can't hide from it."**

Clips of gangster rap and Boyz n the Hood are played on a TV as a black audience is shown enjoying the entertainment.

Cut to a street corner where black men engage in a drug deal.

**"Making the same old excuses."**

Black men are shown fighting on the sidewalk.

*"Snitches get stitches!"* The mantra is repeated over and over again by well-meaning onlookers trying to justify what they see in front of them.

A montage of news segments are plastered on the screen about criminal behavior by black Americans.

**"And there will be no going back."**

Faces of African Americans are shown, evidently making the decision to stop committing crimes and to discourage others like themselves from committing crimes.

**"Because we...we believe in the** ***best*** **of black people..."**

A segment of Larry Elder giving a speech plays: "The greatest danger to black communities are black gangs!"

As hopeful music plays, a black person interrupts a drug deal and encourages his fellow black Americans to knock it off.

**"To say the** ***right*** **thing."**

Another scene of a black person encouraging a deadbeat father to go back to his family.

**"To act...the** ***right way***\*\*."\*\*

Black gang members pursue a victim they are trying to rob.

**"Some already are..."**

A black man regards the gang with disdain and disappointment.

**"In ways big and small."**

A montage of black people behaving in the opposite manner as what had been shown previously plays as the hopeful music swells.

**"But some...is not enough.**

**Because the black kids watching today..."**

We see close-ups of black children watching with reverence the examples of *good* black people.

**"Will be the black adults of tomorrow."**

*The best a black person can get.*

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\^ That was the ad Gillette ran, were "men" replaced with "black people" and the relevant examples of toxicity made more cogent.

I believe this is **horribly offensive**, and I believe any decent person would agree. It is tremendously insulting to black Americans to depict them in this way, even if the message is directed at the population that is actually guilty of what it's talking about.

Since that is the case, it seems clear to me that the real ad about toxic masculinity is similarly offensive. How can it not be?

Although men are overrepresented in committing sexual harassment, it is still only a tiny minority of men who actually commit sexual harassment. Although black men are overrepresented in violent crime, it is still only a tiny minority of black men who actually commit violent crimes. It's therefore insulting to depict average people in these respective camps as being part of the problem.

You can change my mind in these ways:

1. Explain how my analogy is flawed and point out the relevant differences between it and the real ad
2. Failing that, explain why the commercial script I wrote is not offensive to African Americans.

**EDIT:** This post is not about the existence of "Toxic Masculinity". It is about whether the Gillette ad is insulting.

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gpt
You can't find-and-replace 'men' with 'black people' and 'toxic masculinity' with 'gang violence' in the Gillette commercial because those are two different problems and as such require different approaches.

Your hypothetical advert *would* be insulting because it's blind to the context of gang violence in black communities. It's framed within the context of toxic masculinity, which is a socially *different* problem.

A lot of people, yourself included, seem to be missing something important about the Gillette commercial; it's message is "not all men". But you know what? It turns that message, which once was a shrug of the shoulders and a dusting of the hands at the problems faced by women at the hands of men, into a positive message. It says "Not all men are like that, so the ones who aren't have the power to do something, to help". It's empowering, it says "Not all men are rapists and misogynists, we know that, and we're sending out a call to those good men to stand up to the shit ones. **That** is what it means to be a man, to stand up to toxic masculinity. Stand up to the suppression of male emotionality that leads to higher rates of suicide. Stand up to those douchebags that cat call on the street."

If you wanted that same message for black communities riddled with gang violence, you'd need and **entirely different advert** with a different narrative.