Philips launches a Homophobic Advertisement to sell male grooming kits

In its latest advertisement, Philips features an effiminate John Abraham dressed in a pink Tshirt surrounded by macho, scruffy and supposedly tough and supposedly "Straight" John Abrahams. The advertisement starts with the effiminate John asking the macho Johns, why do they get to go on dates and not him. The scruffy one snubs him and replies "Kyunki ladki se Dosti Karni hai, Dostana Nahin" suggesting that "We want to do friendship with the girl, not enter into a Gay relationship as shown in the movie Dostana". The next sentence spells it out more clearly when the scruffy one says "Girls like to have Friendship with Real Men". 

My thoughts on viewing this ad for the first time was that has the creative quotient gone down so low that the marketers have to take pot shots at one community to sell off their product to another. The message this ad seems to convey is "If you want to be a real man (not a fag), use Philips Grooming Kit". So do they want to say that "Gays are not Real Men" and that "Girls dont like to do friendship with Gays" or that "Gays dont/cannot use Grooming Kits because they are not manly enough"? 

What do we expect next ? An anti black advertisement to sell a fairness cream to "brown" Indians ?

Technically, Tarun Mansukhani has directed this ad pretty well with static shots bringing all five Johns in a single frame and dialogues tying up the storyline. But let us not forget that he is also the director of "Dostana" which is a big, colorful, delightfully dumb Bollywood 'gateway' movie. The movie trades in stereotypes about swishy queers, shallow horndogs, frustrated career girls, guilt-wielding (s)mothers and overbearing aunties who need to chill out and get laid. And you know what? It's pretty damned funny and oddly subversive.

But that is besides the point here. The point here is that while in the movie, everyone learns a lesson or two about tolerance, this ad just acts discriminatory and is downright insulting.