So I woke up to Gene Spafford retweeting the fact that there’s this video:

…which Jezebel needlessly spoilers by describing:

Last week, a guy named Richard Neill posted a long, funny comment on UK maxipad maker Bodyform’s Facebook page about how the company had lied to him through their advertising campaigns over the years, leading him to believe that periods involved a lot of blue liquid, extreme sports, and fun music. It received nearly 85,000 likes. Instead of ignoring it, Bodyform responded with the video above, featuring CEO Caroline Williams (played by an actress) apologizing to Richard personally, explaining that the company needed to lie to protect men from “the blood coursing from our uteri like a crimson landslide.” And then she drinks blue liquid and farts. Amazing.

…and I agree that it is marvellously done.

But then thought about it a bit and decided that it’s a bit cruel.

Which is why it’s funny.

But it is cruel.

Bodyform are clearly going for the viral thing and someone in their marketing department felt this was an opportunity to be maximised – and just went for it, really fast. Elapsed time, eight days.

It’s a corporate sledgehammer being deployed to crack a nut where there is plenty of precedent. But it’s all humour, right? And it’s not sexist?

Well, we could apply Catlin Moran’s test of are the men doing it to the women? to see if it’s sexist – and the short version is: yes, men are, in a general sense, because you get the intra-gender tropes of the “you should be at home, luv” kind.

But if men (eg: a corporate board) direct those at an individual woman (eg: the solitary woman on the board) – they are rightly deemed ad-hominem, cruel, sexist and nasty.

So I don’t quite know what I think about this – I suspect that Richard Neill will be hounded by a few journos for a “reaction” – which he could just laugh off or which may just blow up in Bodyform’s face.

But shouldn’t he just “be a real man” – ha! – and let it drop? After all, he started it:

Hi , as a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years . As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things ,I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding , rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn’t I get to enjoy this time of joy and ‘blue water’ and wings !! Dam my penis!! Then I got a girlfriend, was so happy and couldn’t wait for this joyous adventurous time of the month to happen …..you lied !! There was no joy , no extreme sports , no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no. Instead I had to fight against every male urge I had to resist screaming wooaaahhhhh bodddyyyyyyfooorrrmmm bodyformed for youuuuuuu as my lady changed from the loving , gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin. Thanks for setting me up for a fall bodyform , you crafty bugger

– except he didn’t start it. Occasionally taking the mick out of Bodyform advertising has been a staple of British comedy for years; didn’t French&Saunders do something back in the 90s? Or NotTheNineOClock news? I can’t be arsed to google for them on YouTube but I remember the sketches.

If Bodyform had cleverly constructed a counter-advertising campaign based around this theme, then fine, no problem; but this is a corporate viral advert against a person. It’s an unfair fight.

So we have one person’s barely grammatical comic rant against a advertising campaign being used as a hook for a viral video that will inevitably be successful because it appeals to those who would stick it to the patriarchy by behaving like it.

Nice one, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget; and for a counterpoint can you please pay for Colin Firth to do a short video directed at some named yummy-mummy explaining that really there are no men like the ones he portrays on film and that really he’s just a metaphor too?

I’m sure you’ll find a good candidate if you trawl social media for long enough. Be sure to include her Twitter handle in the video.

—
By gods this is going to blow up if it turns out to have been a planted, fake facebook posting.