Critical Lenses

Gender/Rhetorical Lens:

This is a smart and probably pretty successful commercial. In addition, it is an important message. Before one gets too immersed in critical lenses and begins to critique everything through them, it's worth remembering that sometimes, the message in a text or in media are important ones that have to be said.

Scrutinizing this ad through the critical lenses of gender and viewer response, gives it a different hue. The commercial appears to work because the subject is male. It's funny to watch a man be frustrated by his son, and even possibly regret having him. You get the sense that the child is behaving badly simply because he's a child, not because of parenting. I would argue that a woman in the same situation would not be as amusing to watch, because of the roles men and women are supposed to play in regards to their children.

It's implied that the parents aren't married and that if he had just used a condom, he would have been able to have responsibility-free sex, but the woman's decision to have the kid got in the way. Whether the subject were the mother or father, the implication is also that it's the woman's "fault." Men need to use condoms, not because it's a safe choice, but because it would free him from the "ball and chain."