Old Spice

Our very first post in this series was a discussion of the "I'm on a horse" Old Spice commercial. Some of us loved it and felt guilty about it, some of us loved it and felt great about it, and some of us just loved to hate it. Whichever camp you're in, you might be interested to know that Old Spice just released a follow up:

First things first: All of us at Bitch HQ are bursting with excitement because the folks at Oregon Humanities have awarded us a grant to explore the intersections of advertising, feminism, and media literacy. This virtual symposium is called "Mad World: Gender, Advertising, and Identity in a Mediated World" and over the next eight months you’ll be seeing articles, blog posts, podcasts, and even a virtual book club on the website and in the magazine. Get your media-literacy pants on, people, because we’re doing this thing!

On this, the official Mad World blog, we’ll be discussing how advertising informs our identities and our ideas about sex and gender. Got an idea you’d like to discuss? Let us know! The Mad World blog will go up every Tuesday, and we want you to jump in early and often.

Let’s start with a discussion of this ad: This project was made possible in part by a grant from Oregon Humanities (OH), a statewide nonprofit organization and an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds OH's grant program.

He's taken the role of "ladies man" to new levels on How I Met Your Mother, played himself as a child actor turned mega-douche in the Harold & Kumar movies, and even used his rep for machismo to shill Old Spice.

So why should feminists be crushing? Because he's redefining the way masculinity is portrayed in pop culture.