The maker of Secret deodorant for women, Proctor & Gamble, has been developing a series of commercials for the deodorant, the Secret #Stress Test ad campaign. The most recent addition to the campaign, released this week, shows us that there is “no wrong way to be a woman.” In this 30 second commercial, P&G threw out their 30 years of brand history, “Strong enough for a man, made for a woman,” the tagline the company dropped in 2004. The commercial features transgender actress Karis Wilde. The commercial shows us one scenario of the stress and anxiety that transgender people experience when using public restrooms. In this commercial, the actress steels herself as she prepares to leave a women’s bathroom stall and face other women in the bathroom.
While shooting, I allowed myself to feel vulnerable. It terrified me how much I’ve stored all those emotions; I almost cried in the middle of taping.
Karis Wilde
Last September, we covered a graphic music video that showed some of the rape experiences that occur on US college & university campuses, that was released with Lady Gaga’s song, Til It Happens To You. Karis was in the video. She played a female-to-male transgender man, who was encountered in a men’s restroom by a cisgender man, while he was adjusting his chest binder. The other man raped him.
Karis joins the ranks of a number of transgender folks appearing in some very visible national ad campaigns. Also this week, the transgender model, Arisce Wanzer, is on the cover of the Spiegel catalog.
The main photo is a screen shot from the Secret deodorant commercial. The other image is a scan of the Spiegel catalog’s cover. The story was originally covered by Adland.tv.