I like challenging the rules – particularly those rules which are in the mind.
The rules:
~ The man is rugged, soaps himself with Cinthol/ Aramusk, sprays musk deos, and is a cool dude.
~ He is strong, physically and emotionally.
~ He is the breadwinner of the family.
~ He protects the woman from harm.
~ He is the one who initiates sex.
~ He watches and plays sports.
~ He doesn’t cook, sew or behave coy.
Aaaarrrrghh! Who on earth has made all these rules?
Shoo Woman! The Man has Arrived!
To hell with Rules.
If I want, I will get a facial, a manicure and a pedicure.
If I want, I will get my eyebrows shaped, my chest and limbs waxed.
Maybe even get my nails painted – or do they say, polished.
If I want, I will don some lipstick of some weird shade.
If I want, I will grow my hair long and wear a hairband, maybe even braid it.
If I want, I will wear sarongs and necklaces.
Short of giving birth and lactating, which are outside my domain due to biological reasons, there ought not to be any limitations.
The biological difference notwithstanding, the fairer sex has been in the forefront in demanding equal rights. How about some equal rights for us men too?
From now on, it is no longer the prerogative of the female gender to be called the “fair sex”.
As a male, I have been conditioned by the unwritten rules of the gender differences. Boys play cricket, girls play hopscotch. If girls play cricket – wow, she is a tomboy and a sportsperson. But if a boy plays hopscotch, God save him and his parents from embarrassment.
Men wear pants, women wear skirts. Again, the vice versa is versa for the woman, but vice for the man!
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The Advertisement under question
This ad symbolizes the challenging of those rules. Lux with its carefully cultivated image, has been a “female” soap for decades. Adlore eulogises about how numero uno Bollywood actresses have been enlisted to model for this cake.
Right from the days of Leela Chitnis to Vyjayantimala to Hema Malini to Sridevi and the current lot of Rani and Kareena. Beauty, glamour, fairness, clear skin, fragrance, feminity! Blah, blah!
Storming the female bastion!
The Cake of Soap is set to undergo a change! The Soap may be the same but the “Cheesecake” changes to “Beefcake”!
To me, this is an extremely courageous move by Lux. It has the risk of eroding its traditional image of a feminine soap while at the same time, not being able to capture the imagination of the metrosexual male sufficiently to compensate for the loss thereon.
C'mon, Hindustan Lever is not a fool! It is one of the topmost marketing companies in the country with the pedigree of its global parentage intact. If someone like HLL has dared to take such a bold step, it must be certainly with the clear realization that the Indian male has come of age.
By enlisting the numero uno superstar Shahrukh Khan and not just a wannabe, the ad attempts to integrate attributes of success, machoism, metrosexuality into the protagonist.
The Storyboard
Coming to the brasstacks.
Could the ad have been done more tastefully?
It is debatable. The copy talks of a middle aged male superstar sitting naked in a bathtub, waxing eloquent about his skin and how he too uses this soap, while four of his female predecessors (of this campaign) sit around the tub hearing it all. That is until he goes a bit too far – when they jointly express indignation and drown him in the water.
The ladies look lovely. Each one in a different coloured attire – Hema, Kareena, Sridevi and Juhi – all look ravishing and true blue Lux beauties. The ladies look lovely…er…am I repeating myself?
Now we come to the Baadshahrukh! Well, what can one say about him? True, he symbolizes the “arrived man” alright. But SRK without a shirt in the bathtub is not exactly a pleasant sight to behold.
Somehow, this appears to be a case of replacing feminity with “effeminity”!!!
Yes yes, I know, I am not the right person to judge. But even then, I would anyday prefer to watch say, a certain Mr.Abraham than a shirtless Shahrukh.
As a role model in the looks department, would'nt he have fit the bill better?
