Sydney Sweeney's jean backlash shows how 'offended' America is about everything

When did we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves? When did we choose to either ignore or stop appreciating the immutable fact that men and women are different? Not better or worse, just different.

Whenever it was, it was a wrong turn.

Case in point — Columbus-based American Eagle Outfitters has been in the news lately for an ad campaign featuring a busty, blue-eyed, beauty — actress Sydney Sweeney. She’s selling jeans by offering a little word play on her genes as well as her jeans.

I’d bet most of the males seeing the ads are paying more attention to the results of the former than the latter. That’s one of those differences between the sexes that might now be pathologized as “toxic masculinity” rather than a fact of nature that’s simply understood and appreciated.

It’s an even easier bet that many females seeing the ads like both the jeans — and the genes of the woman wearing them — since the company is sold out of the style and their stock price is up over 20% since the campaign started. 

Alas, not everyone is as appreciative.

Critics wasted no time lambasting the ad, claiming — in the modern style, without evidence — the ads were a “dog whistle” for Nazis, eugenicists, and white power. The Grade A silliness of their claims was perfect to rile up the perpetually perturbed pesters of what passes for the progressive world today. 

Legacy news outlets including The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, The Boston Globe, etc., all ran stories either directly critical of the campaign or approvingly highlighting the fact of the criticism itself.

A cynic might suggest they were more interested in clicks than comprehension.

The New York Times ran pieces alternatively gaslighting and greenlighting the critics of the criticism. It’s a merry-go-round of finger-pointing that lacks both merriment or any meaningful point.

It’s worth noting that the beautiful and talented Beyoncé was also featured in an ad campaign for jeans — Levis — where her physical features and blonde wig figured prominently. I don’t recall anyone suggesting dog whistles then.

American Eagle has handled the “controversy” perfectly, mostly by ignoring it, no doubt following the age-old dictum that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

But conservatives shouldn’t get too smug about this latest progressive excess. We haven’t always been on the right side of social change.

Growing up in the ‘60s and 70’s. I remember protests for civil rights and women’s empowerment. They were responses to real discrimination based on immutable characteristics of race and sex. The gay rights movement followed a similar path. It took several decades for society to fully embrace the changes but by the turn of this century, real progress had been made on all fronts.

Even during those tumultuous times, we could still laugh at ourselves. Comedians poked fun at our foibles. Programs like the early years of Saturday Night Live and a variety of sitcoms tackled issues in ways that brought them to our attention, while showing us a better way — without being preachy about it.

That ended sometime in the last twenty years. Whatever annoying moralizing we saw from TV evangelists and street-corner preachers before was eclipsed by the condescending sanctimoniousness of the “woke” left that still dominates our cultural institutions.

Too many are too quick to take offense where none exists and then pick at the self-inflicted wounds to their fragile psyche. Convinced the source of their distress is those other than the person in the mirror, they demand everyone else change their views and behaviors.

I often saw this first hand in my eight years of school board service. It got to the point that a colleague commented during one of our public meetings that people were looking for reasons to be offended rather than focusing on what mattered for kids. Needless to say, that didn’t go over too well, it’s truthfulness notwithstanding.

The navel-gazing and excuse-making for individual and collective failures leads to the opposite of social progress. It’s even worse for parents to make excuses for their children rather than holding them accountable.

There’s no example of any successful civilization in history following that path.

And there’s no room for comedy when the hurt from a cross word is considered commensurate with a right cross punch to the nose.

While I make no claim to any comedic talent, I started this blog to punch back on the view that words are violence.

The whining over Sydney Sweeney’s jeans/genes is its own unintentional comedy. Most of us get the joke since a poll just released shows the whiners represent only 12% of Americans.

It’s not society’s responsibility to make everyone feel good about themselves. That comes from within.

And if you hear dog whistles, which resonate at a frequency above human hearing, perhaps a visit to an audiologist or psychologist is in order.

Life is hard enough. Laughing makes it easier.