“The striking thing about [conservative] responses is how they assume that traditional masculinity and men are one and the same… what if you're not that way? What if you're a boy who would rather play with dolls than guns? What if you're queer or trans? What if, as a man, you're sometimes depressed, or scared, as all human beings are?…

“In trying to live up to [traditional] ideals of manliness, men are often reluctant to ask for help when they are in distress. This can make it difficult for psychologists to identify depression in men, which is part of the reason why men are less often diagnosed with depression, and why they have suicide rates as much as three times that of women… Traditional masculinity [also] tends to celebrate male violence, which is partially responsible for the fact that men commit 90% of violent crimes.”
CNN

Interestingly, some say that “far from radical, the Gillette commercial is actually deeply traditional, even conservative, in its depiction of masculinity. Rather than an attack on manhood or a radical call to overthrow the patriarchy, the commercial instead celebrates men and affirms long-standing notions of masculinity as honorable and virtuous… the bulk of the commercial shows men saving the day: breaking up fistfights, defending a woman’s honor, fulfilling their parental duties. If chivalry had a national media campaign, this is what it would look like.”
Huffington Post

“It doesn’t take a sociologist or a psychologist to recognize a lot of guilt and fear masquerading as anger… It’s not an attack on men, by the way. It's an attack on inappropriate and abusive behavior by men. So if you don't engage in that, what's there to worry about?”
USA Today

Regarding its effectiveness, some say that the ad “is similar in spirit to, say, Dove’s long-running ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ campaign, which points out the many ways in which women can be their own worst enemy when it comes to their self-image. But while we are used to this type of prescriptive ad messaging targeting women and their emotions, men are more often appealed to with humor and lighthearted quips or sex-based appeals… [This ad] has made men think of Gillette as more than just another manufacturer of razors but as a brand with meaning and with values and, perhaps, part of their journey to manhood.”
The Hill

Others think the ad fell flat. “The ad was directed by British agency Somesuch’s Kim Gehrig, who did the highly impactful 2015 This Girl Can advertising campaign for Sport England. But the feminist activism that animated both ads doesn’t have the same impact on both audiences. I love both these ads. They speak to me and inspire me. But I’m not the target of the second one… It’s taken decades for companies to learn to talk to women. Now the ruckus around Gillette’s latest ad, The Best Men Can Be, shows it’s high time we also learn to talk to the [modern] men.”
Forbes

Finally, some point out that “the campaign is engineered to mine as much buzz from as many sources as possible. It’s a heat-seeking missile aimed at the thinkpiece industry. It’s also a kind of political Rorschach test built to twig the amygdalas of anyone at the intersection of outrage-prone and Twitter-adjacent. The only thing this ad campaign isn’t? A commitment to do anything other than sell razors.”
ThinkProgress