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Kenwood AC: "Men Will Be Men"

Syed Shayaan Hasan

Are you ever watching television and you come across an advertisement and think how is the content of this ad related to the product they are trying to sell? I recently came across a television ad for Kenwood Air-conditioners which made me think the same way. The ad starts off with a couple having guests at their house for dinner. The guests compliment the wife for making amazing food but the husband cuts them off and says that it’s their maid that made it, not the wife after which the wife continues to glare at him and the ad concludes at “aaj tou bachat mushkil se hogi, bachat ke liye lagayein Kenwood AC”. After coming across this ad, I went on to do some research and found out that there is actually a series of ads by Kenwood which Is actually referred to as “Men will be men” and those ads have a similar theme to the one I mentioned above. Another ad starts off with the guy sitting with his friends and telling them that his wife misbehaved with him so he hit her and he seemed to be very proud of it, however, his friends figure out that he’s lying, making him feel embarrassed. The next ad proceeds in which the guy is talking about the Kenwood AC app on his phone so the wife asks him for his phone and he starts worrying and stalling as if he has something to hide on his phone. I went on to see many more ads for this series and each of them is worse than the other. These types of advertisements are ones which normalize this type of behaviour from men and are actually promoting the saying “Men will be men”. It constantly shows the woman as a nosy, annoyed person who always gets angry at her husband. These are the advertisements which embed these ideas into our society and normalize such behaviours in our households.




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4件のコメント


Rafay Abdul Razzaq
Rafay Abdul Razzaq
2022年8月07日

Hello Shayaan! Absolutely love this post. Saw the ad and realized that the 'men will be men' trope is used so frequently within Pakistani media that we barely even recognize it. Just made me think about a lot of the shows my parents watch at night such as the likes of Khabar-daar with "supposedly knowledgable and progressive" aftab Iqbal, hasbe-haal and mazaak raat. I think the highly talented and respected artists of these shows sometimes rely too heavily on the men will be men ideology.

I often catch my parents laughing at the most absurd jokes and just know they wouldn't be able to take it if the genders were reversed. Sorry to side-track but this makes me think that…

いいね!

Aiman Rahman
2022年8月07日

What an eye opening piece! "Boys will be boys" is such a popular yet deeply problematic trope in media. The way all boy cliques are represented almost makes one's skin crawl. They'd often be painted as rowdy, tattooed, muscular men whose only interest lies in objectification of women's bodies and sports.

I feel like a lot of men who are interested in other aspects such as arts, culture and music feel deeply alienated watching these representations, since they render them isolated

いいね!

Mahnoor Noman-22020331
Mahnoor Noman-22020331
2022年8月07日

Shayaan, after reading this and having watched this ad already, I remember how I got triggered as well and how these daily memes and jokes make the issue of men cheating, beating their wives and all their toxic activities less serious. On the opposite, these jokes portray women as the villains and the ones taking away freedom from their husbands. My question is, if these a normal concepts, why is women cheating such a big issue then? Men will never laugh on jokes about women cheating on them, and will men ever accept these jokes in public? Men can never take criticism even if they do not treat their wives right. That is why these memes are creating toxic normals…

いいね!

Bushra Zain_24020514
2022年8月07日

Hello Shayaan!


As I was reading your blog, I suddenly thought of the "Women" meme, in which people make fun of women in many hilarious ways and then laugh. The same thing also occurs in "Men will be Men." They are merely promoting and supporting the reality of these kinds of views by simply promoting the Kenwood AC and related products. I do believe that these memes are normalizing these ideas, as you mention.


Men who watch this commercial are likely to chuckle, enjoy it, and desire to act in this way since, in our modern and fashionable language, this is what is referred to as "swaggy conduct." If a woman watching the advertisement will experience the same thing: on…


いいね!
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