The Gillette ad has finally made it onto late-night television.
“There’s controversy in the world of advertising, folks. Gillette is drawing fire for a #MeToo-themed commercial that challenges ‘toxic masculinity,’” Stephen Colbert said on The Late Show Wednesday night. “Wow, that sounds… cutting edge.”
After playing a clip from the new ad—which asks, “Is this the best a man can get?”—Colbert turned to the reaction from Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, who summed up the message this way: “So let’s point out all the bad things you might say about men, put them into an ad, make men feel horrible, and then say, ‘Overpay for a razor.’”
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“Wow, he really gets worked up about ads,” Colbert replied, imagining how Kilmeade might respond to other commercials. “‘Please drink responsibly? Oh, so now I’m not supposed to crash my car into a nursing home, stumble out, and puke in the therapy pool! Thanks for the lecture, Mike’s Hard Lemonade!’”
“While I was sincerely moved by this ad, especially the kids at the end, are our public institutions so weak that we need to be taught moral lessons by razor companies?” the host asked. “Because first it’s Gillette, and the next thing you know, every company is going to try to jump on the woke bandwagon.”
From there, he cut to an ad for IceGuard, complete with the new slogan, “Scrape away toxic masculinity.”
