Battle has been joined over an advertisement by shaving products company Gillette that has been watched by an incredible 24 million people on YouTube.

The advertisement, more like a short film, begins by showing men looking sadly into the mirror and then shows a Gillette ad from 30 years ago that, in the spirit of that era, celebrated male physical prowess and hinted with its slogan ‘‘the best a man can get’’ that the razor blade could help in ‘‘getting’’ women.

The film then switches to a series of scenes of men dealing first badly and then well with examples of bullying, sexuality, violence and parenthood.

The conclusion invites men to join the razor blade company in promoting ‘‘the best a man can be’’ via a campaign that donates to various worthy causes.

It is hard to see what the fuss is about.

This is not the first time that ads have tapped into social issues and gender roles.

The issues of sexual politics that the campaign evokes are not shocking or new.

Indeed they play out in the pages of the newspaper every day.

Ultimately this ad only makes explicit a theme that is implicit in many ads.

Men today are questioning the stereotypes they grew up with.

Tourism Australia’s ad for the 2018 Super Bowl featured actor Chris Hemsworth smiling indulgently at Crocodile Dundee’s daggy son, who poses as an outback hero but cuts himself shaving with a crocodile knife.

Sophisticated consumers want ads that reflect the complexity of the modern world.

The Australia Day lamb ads in recent years have mocked everything from white settlement of Australia to the culture wars themselves.

Last year’s ad mocked culture warriors themselves, presenting the left and right disrupting an Aussie barbecue by dancing like the gangs of Sharks and Jets from the Broadway musical West Side Story.

We cannot wait to see what this year’s ad is.