Calvin Klein ads that sexually exploit minors, and promote “kiddie porn,” do not bother the Left, but American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney ad does. This tells us volumes about the way radicals think.
In 1980, Brooke Shields was featured in a Calvin Klein jean ad, saying, “You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” While some media outlets refused to air the spots, those who fancy themselves as open-minded were unmoved. It did not matter that Shields was only 15—the deep thinkers are champions of libertinism.
In 1995, Calvin Klein was back exploiting adolescents, featuring young boys and girls in sexually suggestive poses and various stages of undress. There was a picture of a boy in jockey-type underwear (with black fingernail polish) and a girl on a ladder with her underwear exposed. One of the girls was wearing a cross. After the Catholic League, along with Jewish leaders, raised a stink, the ads were withdrawn within ten days. Again, the Left was nonplussed.
Now we have a young good-looking star, Sydney Sweeney, pushing American Eagle jeans. She is an adult, and she is not photographed in a sexually provocative manner. Nor is she playing fast and loose with a religious symbol. But she still managed to set off a firestorm of criticism.
A video of the ad says, “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” She is shown crossing out “genes,” inserting “jeans.” She opines, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.”
She hit the Left’s hot button. Their idea of freedom allows for “kiddie porn,” but not any hint of what nature ordains. The very word “genes” was enough to ignite charges of eugenics. Moreover, her critics took note that she is a blue-eyed blond white woman, as if that is a bad thing. A female woke professor from London, Dr. Sarah Cefai, commented that the ad “obviously winks at the obsession with eugenics that’s so prevalent among the modern right.” She names no one.
It is the Left, not the right, that has long had an obsession with eugenics. During the Progressive Era, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Richard T. Ely was one of its most prominent leaders. “Negroes,” the left-leaning progressive said, “are for the most part grownup children, and should be treated as such.”
Not long after, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, operationalized his ideas. She believed that the best way to get rid of poverty was to get rid of the poor, especially blacks. This was the motivation behind her birth control agenda. Her friends in Marxist circles defended the white supremacist.
The Left likes to blame eugenics on conservatives, citing Hitler as their right-wing leader. But his party, known as the Nazis, was called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (not exactly a right-wing name), and it had nothing to do with conservative thinking. Conservatives believe in minimal government; those on the Left, socialists and communists, believe in maximum government control.
The Left hates the word “genes” because it reminds us of the role nature plays in directing human behavior. That bothers them. Their quest for social engineering is predicated on the idea that by manipulating the environment, we can determine behavioral outcomes. Nature gets in the way of their grand totalitarian design.
American Eagle’s sales and stock are soaring, thanks to the humorless woke mob. Congratulations to Sydney Sweeney for braving the storm, and to American Eagle for doubling down.
Let American Eagle know of your support: linemedia@ae.com
