Thank You, Tide

Over the last year or so, a particular commercial would occasionally air.  The commercial is for Tide, and features a father talking about his daughter's favorite princess costume.

So what's different about it?

The fact that the father is not being portrayed as a bumbling, incompetent fool.  That he's not an egregious male stereotype who's giving this "interview" in his converted Man-cave in the garage or basement.  That this is a parent of a child and happens to be capable of performing chores around the house.

This sort of thing has been around forever.  After all, just pick any random sitcom and you see incompetence abound at the home, and pure chaos if Mom isn't around to swoop in and save the day.  In ads for cleaning products, it's generally the wife or mother using it to her satisfaction while Dad's only role is to either mess things up by not knowing how a sponge works, or stand around clueless about what to do with the mustard-and-spaghetti splatter on the wall.

In reaction to an ad campaign that Huggies ran a few years ago that catered to this notion that we're utter incompetents, a group of fathers loudly and vocally expressed their displeasure at the obvious marginalization -- a sort of "misandry," if you will.  Huggies' original campaign suggested that because we're so stupid when it comes to babies and diaper changes, Huggies products could even withstand our own incapability.  They instead changed that after the backlash to something more positive.  The statement from a spokesperson from Kimberly-Clark (parent company of Huggies) said:

"We respect the job that all parents do in helping to raise and care for their children. We also recognize that Dad is playing a larger role in the family and deserves to be celebrated."

Truthfully? I don't need to be celebrated. I'd just like to not be insulted.

That's what I get from the Tide commercial. It's not going out of its way and falling all over itself to prop me or any other capable father up on pedestals. It's just stating a simple fact, and the simplicity of its delivery spoke volumes greater than any proverbial orchestra or marching band ever could.

Postscript: of course, I know I'm not alone in this line of thinking, and others more cogent than I have expressed similar sentiment.  And because it's The Internet, one typical reaction will be "oh get over yourselves, lighten up, get a life, it's just a joke" as if to say that our very real reaction is merely overreaction.  To that, I would retort: a joke is only real if everyone is laughing, not if someone is being laughed at.