It’s Hard Out Here for a Dad Bod, According to This Ad
Australian underwear brand Bond is playing on gender body issues in its latest campaign, “Think of Fathers.” The Father’s Day–themed ads feature a group of dads wearing only underwear, discussing how fatherhood changed their bodies, as forlorn piano music tinkles in the background. “I just want my prebaby body back,” one fellow laments at the beginning of the spot.
The men discuss the outrageous and unrealistic images the media puts out of how men’s dad bods should look. “I mean, I see dad’s bodies in magazines, but who actually looks like that?” one guy says. “I saw David Beckham a week after childbirth and he’s out running … with no top on,” another fellow mentions.
The spot is a clear attempt to humorously play upon the body issues women face postpregnancy. We all know that women get a lot of scrutiny when it comes to their postpregnancy/parenthood bodies, and the pressure to quickly “snap back” after giving birth is very real. An article for the Cut explores this phenomenon, saying that “the most ideal form of the postbaby body is a body that looks like the baby never happened.”
This is not to say that society and the media don’t put unrealistic expectations on men. The pressure to be bulky and ripped with abs out of a Calvin Klein campaign is also very real issue for men. But perhaps this ad could have touched on the body issues men face in a humorous manner instead of playing on women’s issues? Either way, at the very least, the campaign challenges us to think about how we talk about bodies and how we expect new parents to look.
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