Not only are cleaning products your friends, they can also take the place of lovers! Sarah Haskins has much funny stuff to say on the topic. ^_^ I certainly know I was socialized to bond with my mom while cooking and cleaning - studying at her knee was how we bonded, and to a large extent, still do. My male relatives bonded over equally gendered activities - chopping wood and working on cars.

It would be so much more practical if each of us were trained to do ALL these things - that way, in adulthood, I wouldn't have to pay someone to change my spark plugs, and my brother wouldn't have to eat nothing but Taco Bell. Oh gender roles. How useless you are!

I wouldn't conclude that the kid is pointing out something that needs scrubbing, since I can't see the slightest speck of dirt in the image. She could just as easily be pointing out how magically clean the surface has become, thanks to the cleaning solvent that saved the family.

As for the main point, though, I think images like this would be more suspect if it were unusual for ads to make the product look like something one might enjoy using. "Cleaning is fun because I have this handy little thing" is not quite the same message as "cleaning is fun because I have a vagina," regardless of the models' gender.

Of course Procter & Gamble could put more men in the ads to shake things up a little bit, but let's not forget, "Mr Clean" is only a brand. The actual product is alcohol ethoxylate - not as lethal as botox, but still not a substance anyone would really choose to bring into a household with children and get all over our hands without the help of marketing hypnosis. The use of the maternal archetype lulls the viewer into associating it with care and safety and pragmatism rather than mild toxicity. Masculinity is more associated with risk and danger, so we don't make desirable models for chemical solutions.

This is something I'd have expected in a vintage ad... but a modern ad that says a mother should spend mother's day cleaning!? Also, last I checked, Mother's day was supposed to be about other people doing mom's job. Why is there any job at all she's supposed to get back to, be it cleaning or bonding?

O.o

It's probably also worth noting that the product fits with many others in the market in that the brand name/product name is male - Mr Clean, Mr Muscle, Mr Sheen etc. So, cleaning is deemed woman's work, but the product is to be male. I suppose a 'male' product is meant to be associated with strength, power, perhaps even expertise.

Somewhat of a derail but has anyone else pointed out how much this product sucks? Yes, it "magically" erases grime, but also micro-erodes most surfaces so they get dirty way faster next time. My advice, stick to simple soap and water, or give less of a f**k how dirty your house is.

I think this little girl lives in a plastic bubble because she has some kind of terrible immunosuppresion. It is 'the' thing that matters to her and her mom, and she is smiling when she points out that germ to her mom, cause she knows that because she does this , she will live to see another day, and buy time for the cure to be found.

The mom is also a geneticist, and when she is not cleaning, she is heading a team of researchers (which includes the girls dad, by the way)in trying to find the gene responsible for the disease to turn it off (or on). Mr.Clean is the janitor at the research facility, and also volunteers in the fundraising for research.

More like Mother-Daughter bondage (as in slavery, not kink)

Wait, so cleaning quickly so you can hang out with your kid is bad. Gotcha. And somehow liking things clean is BAD. Great. What is WRONG with people?

Cleaning isn't fun, having cleaned and looking at the result is fun. But that's not what the ad is saying. Annoying!

Sadly, this is far too common: I recently emailed the German coffee & household stuff provider Tchibo who was doing an ad about cleaning products featuring la-la-music, a lady clad in pink, and a life-size pink doll house through which she was ecstatically frolicking while cleaning... I pointed them to the stereotypes they were reinforcing, but their only reply was a standardized "we've tried this with ads featuring a guy and the public didn't respond well", which I'm inclined to believe only in part!

in my view, things expressed in toty are nice (visit at https://dalidel.com/%D8%AC%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B2%D9%87-%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%AA%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%86-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B2%DB%8C-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84-toty/)