Wall of Fame: Hello, Ladies, the Old Spice Man Is Back (on a Motorcycle)

I like them both! And I can only assume that crocker92 lives in a house built by women, drives a car built by women, works for a woman, and only shops at stores owned by women. Because she certainly wouldn't want to support the patriarchy in any kind of way.

Sheesh. Since when is appreciating men a bad thing? The fact is, my husband builds furniture for our house, and you're dang right I think it's sexy.

http://table4five.net

I love the fact that the makers of these Old Spice commercials knows we are tired of these "reality-based" commercials and gave us humor that is very grown up and a bit rique'. He, the actor is such great eye candy for both Ladies and Gay men alike. How the fuck does that happen?...and we (women) ain't mad!

I love it, I just hope that they don't do that mess clairol did with the fake orgasm in the showers (every commercial) for that ridiculous shampoo & conditioner Herbalessence.

Be loving & Be in LOVE

Someone sounds a little bitter. Nothing I could say would make you play nice or like men so I will just let someone else argue with you a while. I have to go clean my kitchen and then go sit at my husband's feet ;)

There is immeasurable value in what I do. I won't ever believe otherwise. www.notquitejunecleaver.com ( http://www.notquitejunecleaver.com )

You do realize the Lord Jesus Christ was a man, right? And I have heard he was pretty macho. Just sayin'.

There is immeasurable value in what I do. I won't ever believe otherwise. www.notquitejunecleaver.com ( http://www.notquitejunecleaver.com )

I feel that no woman would be as willing to accept men for their oppressiveness and at the same time call herself a feminist or at the very least progressive. I think that this must be your husband writing this for you because otherwise there's really no other explanation.

Please allow your wife to use the computer sometime and get away from the oven.

You're misunderstanding both your argument and mine. I understand your deconstructionist approach but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's satire or not. Whether or not you're paying attention to the macho man because he's making fun of being macho, or because he's really macho, you're still paying attention to him because of the "machoness." You've taken the time to deconstruct what Old Spice has done, but you're still responding to it. You've let them trick you into thinking that you're free thinking, while in reality you're still being tricked into playing into the patriarchy. I can only pray to God and the Lord Jesus Christ that you are able to throw off the blinders and open the door into reality.

It cracks me up on a day I need to laugh :))

I'd be perfectly fine with either of those two commercials playing on loop whenever I turn on the television.

How presumptuous of you to assume I haven't read any or all of your suggestions.

What you are trying to do is to tell us what to think and feel and how to act. Which I believe is what you are accusing our male counterparts of inflicting upon the rest of us.

What you need to do is to lighten up, chill out and find your sense of humor. Life is too short and too sweet to not laugh about things - especially things that are meant for your entertainment.

I love all the men in my life. So sorry if that offends you. But you don't know a thing about me (nor likely anyone else on here) and how I choose to interact with the men I have relationships with. I have a husband and three sons and I am insulted for them that you assume all men are oppressors just as you assume I am oppressed.

I understood every word your wrote. Believe it or not. What I didn't understand is why Vagina wasn't made plural instead of possessive in your first post. See I do know sarcasm and when to use it.

But thanks for your concern. I am touched that you would show such emotion towards complete strangers.

There is immeasurable value in what I do. I won't ever believe otherwise. www.notquitejunecleaver.com ( http://www.notquitejunecleaver.com )

It's exceptionally well done satire.

Nordette Adams ( http://www.bookotopia.com ) is a BlogHer CE ( http://www.blogher.com/haystackprofile/viewprofile... ) & you can find her other stuff through Her 411 ( http://her411.com ).

And I haven't had it since 2001. . . :)

Completely ridiculous and full of awesome.

And SATIRE!! FULL OF SATIRE!!

crocker92, stay far away from The Onion. Your head would explode.

I'd love to bring this Old Spice Man home. Talk about a yummy, yummy, chocolate candy of a man!

And the best part, he's got a sense of humor. Watched it 3 times, made me laugh every time.

The creative minds behind these and Isiah, all deserve raises.

He's got a part in the next Tyler Perry movie which may mean I'll have to go and see a Tyler Perry movie!

Megan

TV/Online Video Contributing Editor ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/megan-smith )

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That is one fine specimen of a man. Plain and simple. Fine enough that really the smell good is just a bonus ;) And that fact is coming from a woman likely old enough to be his mother.

The Kotex commercial reminded me of a conversation (albeit one-sided) that my dad and I had not long before he passed. We were sitting in his living room watching tv and a commercial for the "new, beautiful pearl" tampons came on. Not a word was said until it was over and he says "humph...I can't possibly imagine that you girls care what color they are, you don't wear them around your necks" - I almost peed my pants. How true it was.

The beer commercials with nearly naked women are almost as absurd - come on, how many women in real life does a man see that look like that? My husband still drinks the beer he likes the taste of and its an import.

Oh well, amusing how people see things so differently.

There is immeasurable value in what I do. I won't ever believe otherwise. www.notquitejunecleaver.com ( http://www.notquitejunecleaver.com )

It must be a sad sad world when you cannot appreciate satire for the ridiculousness of it!

However, I still contend this is satire, which is my favorite form of humor. In its exaggerated state, it pokes fun at both men (for thinking they can fool women with their smell and tickets to "that thing that you love" into having sex with them) and women (for occasionally falling prey to wishing their men looked like Isaiah). It's a satire of the human mating dance so often portrayed in advertising because sex sells.

Satire must lean hard on stereotypes in order to make its point, and it's often misunderstood. The Old Spice Man is satire. The Kotex commercial is satire. A lot of stuff that I have written about here on BlogHer (I invite you to read my earlier work -- you'll understand why my jaw dropped when you called me a conservative in addition to some other not nice stuff) is NOT satire, and when I see something that is not satire, I respond with the vehemence with which you wish I would take up this issue. I'm not having that reaction to this ad, and I'm not checking my feminist card just because I'm not pissed.

Satire has always been debated. I believe what you and I are debating is whether or not this ad is satire, not whether or not I bow to the patriarchy. The techniques of satire ( http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/less... ) are:

*Exaggeration (the best night of your life)

*Incongruity (presenting things that are absurd in relation to their surroundings)

*Parody (of other ads)

*Reversal (presenting things out of order in which they would normally appear)

Old Spice Man is an equal opportunity offender in his overblown interpretation of men's grooming products and their marketing. If I had time, I would write a tome on this, because you've really piqued my interest here. I wish I would've had more opportunity to research other satirists and perhaps I will do so in the future.

Rita Arens authors Surrender Dorothy and is the editor of Sleep is for the Weak. She is BlogHer's assignment and syndication editor.

By you not understanding my symbolic question, there's not much I can do for you over the internet other than tell you that it wasn't literal. I can only pray that this is meant to be sarcastic, but even then, that's not much better. You see I'm trying to bring women to a state of self-awareness, while you're holding women back. You're negative feedback to a feminist interpretation of the texts above makes you the soldier of the male egos. They've trained you so well to be negative towards any form of feminism, and thus remain their slave, that you defend the status quo patriotically and blindly.

I only hope that you might pick up one of these novels over your lifetime: "The Radical Women Manifesto," "The Female Eunuch," "Sexual Politics," or any one of Virginia Woolf's novels. I hope you can look past the symbolism in these books and realize that they're only trying to help you break the bond of servitude to our male counter-parts.

Rita, you've been completely brain washed by those macho pigs! It doesn't matter if you naively think it's satire, you're still responding to the same symbols and archetypes you would be if this ad was satire or serious. Any positive response to this ad is negative for women everywhere, you believing that you're educated is even worse. You psuedo educated conservative women don't know what the hell you're talking about. This is clearly an ad to stroke the male instilled part of the female mind. By you responding positively to this you're doing nothing more than being a good dog for your new male owner.

...and I'm terrible at that. So there.

Fweetieb Blog: http://justfweetieb.blogspot.com

I really love that. And I agree -- since the story of the first commercial is how it was done, I love the wink and nod to it in the second.

I Liked it but missed the first line about look at your man, and now look back at me. That was sooooo cool.

Mariana

And according to both my husband and my gynecologist, it's damn near perfect. And from all accounts, my womanhood and all its many other facets is very much intact.

Call me what you like. I love this guy. He's beautiful, articulate & has a paying job. I don't want to marry him (I have a husband of 33 years) but I will certainly enjoy him from afar.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

There is immeasurable value in what I do. I won't ever believe otherwise. www.notquitejunecleaver.com ( http://www.notquitejunecleaver.com )

I still like the old one better and there's even another one where he's on a horse backwards that is amazing.

I think he's a great actor and it's just a smart satire commercial, I wouldn't read too heavily into it. I highly doubt that there's going to be women out there judging their men by how well they can swan dive. I hope not because my husband only excels at belly flops.

It's well done satire. There are a lot of commercials out there that do portray women to be easily fooled into falling for the macho man, but this isn't one of them. It's clearly exaggerated -- swan dive into the best night of your life? And that's why it's so great. It indicates in its excess that Old Spice/Isaiah know that using macho men to try to sell body wash is what everyone does and it's silly. This actually reminds me of the totally awesome Kotex ad ( http://www.blogher.com/bloghers-wall-shame-and-fam... ) that can't be shown on television in the U.S. because they dare to imply blue water is not what comes out of our bodies every month.

These are both examples of commercials making fun of commercials, which I totally appreciate. I wish all marketers were so self-aware.

To quote Andrea Grime (in Maria Niles first post on the Old Spice Man): The commercial is also treating constructed gender stereotypes for both men and women with silliness -- I mean, diamonds! And he's on a boat! And he's on a horse! Instead of valorizing some kind of wanky, false male ideal (see the Dockers Man-ifesto), Old Spice is closer to sending up the entire genre of gender-based marketing as a whole.

Rita Arens authors Surrender Dorothy and is the editor of Sleep is for the Weak. She is BlogHer's assignment and syndication editor.

Thanks for posting! I hadn't seen this yet, and I LOVE this dude. The first commercial will always be a classic, but "SWAN DIVE...into the best night of your life" might be my new personal mantra.

He is fiyine and I'm fine with his fineness ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2010/02/im-womanist-bu... ). LOL.

Nordette Adams ( http://www.bookotopia.com ) is a BlogHer CE ( http://www.blogher.com/haystackprofile/viewprofile... ) & you can find her other stuff through Her 411 ( http://her411.com ).

That's me licking the screen. I prefer both commercials. He recently signed a talent deal with NBC ( http://www.essence.com/entertainment/hot_topics/ol... ).

Nordette Adams ( http://www.bookotopia.com ) is a BlogHer CE ( http://www.blogher.com/haystackprofile/viewprofile... ) & you can find her other stuff through Her 411 ( http://her411.com ).

Are those things I like. Maria, did you see he got a deal with NBC?

Not only does this ad further drive home archetypes that men must be the builders and home providers, but it also points at us women and says that we should only want that in a man. By buying old spice as a result of this commercial you are telling Old Spice that they can put a half naked muscular man on a television screen and we will have nothing more than instinctual sexual urges for our spouses to act and look like that man and therefore buy Old Spice for them.

This ad is saying that women want nothing more than a man that looks, sounds, and smells like a stereotypical rugid brute of a man. You, as women, should be ashamed at such an ad and be forcing it's removal, not debating over which one you like better! By liking these ads you're doing nothing more than throwing away your womanhood and telling men to make you into whatever stereotype they want because you're completely fine with that.

Mustafa's breezy superficiality, so perfectly tongue-in-cheek, cracks me up. Rita, I double-dog dare you to start all your conversations this way for a week...

Lisa Stone, BlogHer Co-founder ( http://www.blogher.com/member/lisa-stone )

BlogHer is non-partisan but our bloggers aren't! Follow our coverage of Politics & News ( http://www.blogher.com/topic/politics-news ).

Josh always cracks up at those commercials, but they haven't grabbed me yet. Though I am impressed with the top one.

Melissa writes Stirrup Queens ( http://stirrup-queens.com ) and Lost and Found ( http://lostandfoundandconnectionsabound.blogspot.c... ). Her book is Navigating the Land of If ( http://thelandofif.blogspot.com/ ).

I love them both. Equally. And a lot.

Jenna Hatfield (@FireMom ( http://twitter.com/FireMom )), from Stop, Drop and Blog ( http://stopdropandblog.com ) and The Chronicles of Munchkin Land ( http://thechroniclesofmunchkinland.com ), is a freelance writer and newspaper photographer.

First one or the new one - which one do I like better? Both star @isaiahmustafa? Then my answer is "yes." Thank you. :)

BlogHer Contributing Editor ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/maria-niles ) PopConsumer ( http://consumerpop.typepad.com/popconsumer ) Beyond Help ( http://mariax.vox.com/ )

So clever to not try to do it seamlessly like the first commercial, but rather show us how they're doing what they do.

I like them both. I can't choose. Sue me.

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