Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Deconstructing Old Spice

I live in a house with a lot of people, so there's never a shortage of discussion-generating diversity (of ideas, opinions, backgrounds, etc.) This week I was taking a shower and noticed someone's Old Spice body wash, and I really can't help but comment. Here's what I'm thinking:

"3X Clean Net:" I'm not even sure what this means. Was there some sort of "clean net" that was included in this package? Are they trying to say that you're 3 times cleaner, by net weight? This is just confusing. Or, perhaps "net" means "clean" in French. Looking at this a little closer, perhaps that's it, but I'm not sure.

Next: "Doesn't leave you feeling dry or rob you of your dignity." So, it moisturizes your skin and reassures you of your ineffable human goodness? I'm not quite sure exactly how these two go together. However, one might be able to take a few leaps to assume that a loss of dignity might come from a flowery/fruity scent, which this is clearly trying to avoid, nonetheless providing desirable moisturization...

"Like wearing an armor of man-scent" -- Is this a good thing? So this "man-scent" armor protects you from what, exactly? Also, hat tip to Luke for pointing out that this is slightly homo-erotic, suggesting that a man (presumably heterosexual) might not want to be covered in man-scent, or, at least, wouldn't want to be judged by this type of thing in a heteronormative society.

Finally, "Drop-kicks dirt, then slams odor with a folding chair" Even though I've never seen WWF/WWE, I sense that this may be a reference to it. So now even your body wash is a pro-(fake)wrestler in the epic battle between dirt/odor and...old spice?

Ok, I just had a few questions in response to these Old Spice sayings that showed up in my shower.

Also, I can't help but be reminded of Hyperbole and a Half's awesome segment on making showers exciting again, there are many more hilarious cartoons here.



1 comment:

  1. LOL. Advertising = the science of monetizing the gender binary

    ReplyDelete

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