Remington man shavers ~ a decades-long quest for hairless dudes to fill our beaches
In the post on the Dove "Onslaught" commercial, I brought up that guys as well as girls are being manipulated more and more with images of perfect people in perfect places. The post reminded me of some Remington personal shaver ads. Specifically, I remembered the webpage shedmycoat.com where you can use one of two Remington shavers to shave design into this guy’s back hair:
Remington was the first men’s electrical shaver, and the company did not hesitate to use the beach to sell their product from the early days. See this ad from 1969:
Do you see the guy shaving in his car at the beach? Maybe he spent the night there. Or perhaps he went out for a morning swim and now has to go to work. His girlfriend could even be in the back seat. It’s an intriguing ad with so many questions left unanswered. I think that these questions make this ad at least slightly more compelling than ads today that just throw a guy on a beach with no other story behind it.
Remington continues today to use strange images with men supposedly on tropical beaches. This packaging for example for their contemporary Body Groomer has a buff guy with little hints of palm fronds above his head.
He’s probably Photoshopped onto that beach, and just a pinch of green is all it takes to transport you to that other word — a world where your ad or packaging doesn’t stand out against all of the other products that use the same setting.
The generation of young men aged 15-30 has really seen a tremendous shift in what are acceptable looks and behavior for guys. You may have seen the body spray commercials that act as magnets for hoards of beautiful women in bikinis running and swimming from miles around to get to the great-smelling guy on the beach. Apparently, nowadays boys in junior high and high school are using these sprays as a substitute for showering in the locker rooms. In some cases, the scent is so strong that it’s disrupting other classes. This switch to sprays over showers could just be ordinary teenager apathy, but it also might have something to do with them feeling embarrassed that they don’t look like the guy just above here, and probably never will.
Are beer commercials filled with the most authentic man that we can find to project to young guys? No wonder it’s so hard to grow up today! Maybe someday there will be ads like the Dove ones that will seek to unravel the fake world of "beautiful," hairless men for the boys too.
For now, go to shedmycoat.com and write, "Hi, Mom!" Doesn’t she deserve a great e-card for having brought you up so well groomed?
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Posted on October 9, 2007
Filed Under Beaches, Growing Up, Health and Wellness |
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