Here's the setup: A brawny dude's in the shower, and his wife tells him how Summer's Eve cleansing wash is specifically formulated for a woman's "V," and he's like, "Huh?" And then (gasp!) she asks him if he knows he's using it. Cut to a look of horror on his face. He turns the bottle around for a product shot, and then we're into a montage of him doing the manliest things he can think of to preserve his threatened masculinity. He chops logs, breaks boards, tows a car with his teeth and crushes a beer can with one hand, all set to a rockin' manly track.
Now, you might infer from this that he believes nothing could be worse than the thought of becoming feminized through accidental ladybit-formulized body wash contamination, in which case it's the brotastic asshole who's being the real douche. Or you might just think, "LOL! HE TOTALLY WASHED HIS NADS WITH LADY WASH. HAHA, LOSER!"
Either way, you've probably missed the offensive part to me, which is that a woman doesn't get to be the star of an ad ostensibly about ladies and their vaginas.
Here's my hunch about why: "Feminine care" products are divisive among women and practically loathed by many feminists, who feel the products exist solely to thrive on manufacturing a sense of shame about women's privates. So what’s a marketer to do? Go with the one safe trope that everyone seems to agree on: Guys are dumb.
A lot of people will agree with it, and this spot will probably play great on prime-time TV, where people don't want to hear about lady wash and none of the networks will let you use the word "vagina" anyway.
So sorry, dudes, your gender remains the butt of the joke. You may be depicted as an eternal manchild unable to cope with reality and feverishly concerned about your gender identity, but c'mon, don't you just want to LOL when he rides around on the lawnmower in the Spartan helmet?
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