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Cary Caruso

Professor Granillo

English 103

25 May 2019

Guilty Gillette

“Consequently, before you can determine the extent to which you wish to accept you

wish to accept one condition or another, you must first attempt to discover the precise meaning

of the conclusion and reasons” (Browne and Keeley 38). The idea establishes that for someone to

accept an idea, then there must be a clear idea and no ambiguity within their argument. Gillette’s

commercial caused great controversy as it was considered to be attacking men because of the

talk about toxic masculinity and established the idea that men are bad. Gillette’s “The Best Men

Can Be” illustrates their point of view by expressing concern for society’s toxic masculinity and

the need for changes, but their overgeneralization creates fallacies within the message and fails

to properly address the issue of toxic masculinity because their viewpoint at a glance, and comes

off as degrading and ambiguous. Their use of pathos to achieve guilt, ethos to provoke just

behavior, and ambiguous logos creates an apparent issue that all men are a problem due to toxic

masculinity. In addition, a loaded question fallacy can be seen throughout the commercial. This

causes anger amongst young men who are distracted by the initial message and miss the in-depth

idea.

Gillette is a brand of personal care products for men established in 1901 and has had a

strong support of men buying their products. Their target audience are young males. Gillette’s

claim is that males have become accustomed to toxic masculinity and there needs to be changes.
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Although the commercial conveys a good message, Gillette does not address who they are

talking about and the concept of “all men” get absorbed into this idea that all men are bad in

today’s society and need to change. Due to this, their rhetoric is overwhelmingly degrading

towards men through the use of pathos, and uses guilt as a way to try and persuade them to

change.

Pathos is known as appeal to emotion which is gathering an emotional response in order

to try and convince an audience. Throughout this commercial, Gillette utilizes pathos to try and

persuade the viewer that this is something they should feel obligated to support. The company

uses pathos in the form of guilt throughout their commercial as a way to try and influence men to

change standards in today’s society. The company does not directly state that men are evil, but

they associate problems in today’s society and then discuss male behavior which results in the

assumption that men are a major problem in current society. This can be depicted as Gillette asks

if this is the best men can get as there is talk about bullying, sexual harassment, and masculinity

throughout the opening scene of the commercial (We Believe: The Best Men Can Be

00:00:02-00:00:09). In addition, it shows men looking into a mirror which signals for self change

(00:00:02-00:00:06). The most prominent form of symbolism can be depicted by a mirror which

is a reflection of oneself, and in this case, is showing the guilt of men with toxic masculinity.

This could have been avoided if there was a specific group of target Gillette was referring to

needing change besides putting the entire gender under ridicule. The ambiguity throughout the

commercial causes the problem between toxic masculinity and men, and instead of explaining

the difference, Gillette meshes the two associations together.

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Pathos also plays another role throughout the commercial as it tries to convince people to

be morally inclined to prevent these. There is a scene where two male friends at a party and one

of them has to stop the other one from hitting on a girl to which the narrator says that some are

putting in efforts to make change, but some are not enough (00:00:57-00:01:05). This builds the

assumption that most men do not help out women in distress and let bad things happen when

they can help prevent these types of situations. A man in a business suit says, “what I actually

think she’s trying to say” overwriting her opinion, and the rest of the other people in the room

are men just letting him do this which is an example of Gillette’s assumption that both men will

talk over women, and that people do not step in and allow this to happen (00:00:28-00:00:33).

Later, Gillette creates the premise that men will hit on a woman just because they see one. This

creates ambiguity within the commercial and prevents people from wanting to accept Gillette’s

envisionment for a better society because they make men seem like animals who will just go

after beautiful women and that there is a rare exception of men will actually stand up and protect

women (00:00:53-00:01:05). Gillette’s switches over from pathos to ethos to further support

their argument.

Ethos is another very important part of their commercial because it is meant to make

people take action against toxic masculinity. In the beginning of the commercial, Gillette

announces bullying, sexual harassment, and toxic masculinity asking, “Is this the best a man can

get? Is it? We can’t hide from it. It’s been going on far too long. We can’t laugh it off”

(00:00:02-00:00:25). This expresses two ideas: men have not been taking action against it and

have been pretending not to notice and also that men just play things off as a joke and laugh

about it making matters worse rather than fixing it. To support this idea, Gillette also claims that
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men “make the same old excuses” with phrases such as “boys will be boys” to try and convince

the audience that men in today’s society are okay with unethical things happening to people like

bullying and sexual harassment (00:00:31-00:00:38). The advertisers goal is to affect people’s

emotions and gain support through making people feel more inclined to help by both guilt and

the feeling of obligation. While the company builds a very strategical argument, their emphasis

on logos was a little overwhelming which is what brings fault to their advertisement.

Any one with a moral sense of morals who bullying, sexual harassment, or fighting

would which is why their logos is very effective throughout the commercial. Their examples are

bullying, sexual harassment, and fighting to support a logos argument that people should feel

disgusted and hate towards these things which they direct towards toxic masculinity

(00:00:02-00:00:07). The narrator claims, “we believe in the best of men” which I think most

people could agree on, so there is no real dispute or argument here which helps support the idea

that toxic masculinity is bad and needs to be ended without truly brushing onto the details that

Gillette is also pointing in the direction that most men have this bad behavior (00:00:5-00:00:53).

The logos Gillette has provided also forms a logical fallacy called a loaded question throughout

the commercial.

A loaded question is derived from Gillette’s question “is this the best a man can get?” A

loaded question​ “contains an entrapment, which is used in order to attack the person who is

being asked the question, and which compromises their ability to reply in the way that they

would normally prefer” (Effectivology). ​In this case, their idea of men is associated with

bullying, sexual harassment, and toxic masculinity (We Believe: The Best Men Can Be

00:00:02-00:00:10). So when Gillette asks the loaded question, both lead into a trap of unfair
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conclusions. If the answer is yes, then people are admitting that every man is essentially a

horrible human being, but if the answer is no, then people are admitting that there needs to be

changes in men in today’s society. There is no positive answer in their commercials only

question. In addition, they are targeting all men with the intended audience of young men with

the loaded question to try and depreciate the value of men to be able to restructure these values.

While Gillette may have intended on creating a commercial where people can all agree

that there needs to be changes on today’s society. There was poor execution in the sense that this

commercial upset a lot of people due to the ambiguity of who they are targeting. The overall

message felt like it was based off the assumption that all men are bad people. Pathos is used to

try and guilt people into supporting their claim, ethos is used to establish credibility throughout

the commercial, and logos to try and persuade people to support their argument. However, the

loaded question felt like an attack on men because there is no answer which makes men seem

good, which is where Gillette failed to be clear with their claim. They attacked men overall using

guilt, making people feel inclined, and retaining morals rather than exposing individuals or a

group which is why the ambiguity loses many people in the argument. As Browne and Keeley

express, for someone to accept the condition, there must be a precise meaning meaning of the

conclusion without ambiguity.

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Works Cited Page

Browne, M. Neil, and Stuart M. Keeley. ​Asking the Right Questions.​ Prentice-Hall, 1981.

“Effectiviology.” ​Effectiviology,​ effectiviology.com/loaded-question/.

Gillette. “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be | Gillette (Short Film)” ​Youtube,​ 13 Jan. 2019,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0.