The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

“If the first instability of the male pin-up is the contradiction between the fact of being looked at and the attempt of the model's look to deny it, the second is the apparent address to women's sexuality and the actual working out of male sexuality (Dyer 66)”.

Dyer discusses the relevance of how eye contact is made. He argues that men try to keep their power by either looking away in images or to look directly at the viewer, and that being looked at doesn’t necessarily addresses male or female sexuality but male and female power.

In the commercial The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (2010) for Old Spice body wash we see a male actor/former NFL player Isaiah Mustafa. This commercial uses various gender assumptions and stereotypes in a humouristic manner to sell body wash for men.

The commercial wants to reach a female audience, by starting it with Isaiah saying ‘Hello Ladies’ in a deep, low voice. The man is good-looking, muscular and half-naked. He is the ‘ideal’ masculine man.

He looks directly into the camera, at the audience, and just once stops staring in the camera. He knows he is being watched, but he also controls the gaze over him. He does this by telling the audience where to watch. They have to look away, but have to come back to watch him again. He stands there with confidence.

He tells the women that their men aren’t as manly as he is, because they don’t use Old Spice. They smell like ‘lady-scented’ body wash. It is as if when men start using the Old Spice body wash, they’ll be as ‘manly’ as he is. He tells the audience that when that happens ‘your man’ also gives you all the materialistic stuff he mentions.

Dyer argues that men’s body can never be phallic enough, so they have to compensate. This example shows that by using materialistic objects and the ‘manly’ scented body wash.

Isaiah contains his power by looking at into the camera and having control over the audience by telling them what to do. He is the active one looking.

The commercial might put pressure on men to look like him, smell like him and even give their partners all these materialistic stuff.

Old Spice assumes women buy the beauty products for men, so they target their commercials for them. They assume a heterosexual relationship. They assume that Isaiah Mustafa is like the ‘ideal’ man. They assume women want to be with him, and men want to be him. The commercial uses this in a humouristic way, so it is not really clear if they mean it or ridicule the gender stereotypes. 

Old Spice, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

Richard Dyer, “Don’t Look Now: The Male Pin Up.”