The Old Spice guy has replaced the Marlboro Man as the latest male icon. Following the appearance of the Old Spice ads, sales soared 107% in one month, from May 19 to June 19. (Are we gullible or what?)
What does this mean? Is this progress? Hard to tell. The MM was a hard-working cowboy, alone but not lonely. He had his horse, his cattle, his smokes and beautiful range lit up by magnificent sunsets. No women in sight. Peaceful. He would light his campfire, cook his grub and fix his coffee, plain fare, no chefs. No worries. He was a descendent of the old Wild West, but with no Colt on his hip and no rifle in its scabbard. This was the manly life: autonomous, self-reliant, self-sufficient, rural, natural, as prescribed by Emerson and Thoreau. He's a John Wayne type of guy (but less violent) who also died of lung cancer. Oh yes, and he's white.
In contrast, the OS guy is black, half-naked (upper, not lower), also good-looking, does not work, so far as we know; he is also alone, but lonely and all about sex, specifically, poaching your girl. So he is perhaps a sex addict. He is heavily reliant on gadgets and status symbols, (to bolster his self-image? Does he have an inferiority complex?) and evidently extremely wealthy, dribbling diamonds, (some say a girl's best friend,) and a bit of a joker, riding a horse backwards, so a bit of a show-off, a young George Clooney rather than John Wayne. He is muscular, so even if he does not work, he does work out--a gym rat. Two more advantages over the MM: he does not smoke, so this is definitely an asset; and he smells better, as he points out (so he is not modest nor self-deprecating, even if he is also correct). The MM presumably smells of cigarette smoke, wood smoke, sweat, cattle and dung: an intoxicating perhaps toxic aroma.
