The Sweeney jeans ad praising her genes is genius

How nice to have the Sydney Sweeney "great genes" controversy. It is happily of no consequence, which is just what we need for escape from unhinged behavior spilling out of Washington. Donald Trump's sending nuclear subs toward Russia, a likely distraction from his tangle with Jeffrey Epstein, is something I don't want to think about. Not far behind is his firing the keeper of labor statistics over the less-than-stellar employment numbers she had to report. Trump's top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, was on the Sunday talk shows defending that action. "It's the President's highest priority that the data be trusted," he said. Talk about numbers, Hassett co-wrote a book titled "Dow 36,000." Published in 1999, it predicted the index, then averaging just over 11,000, would approach 40,000 in 10 short years. The Dow didn't reach even 30,000 until 2020. The polemics over Sweeney's genes have gotten much press, but the heated commentary has yet to hit a homer. It centers on an ad towering over Times Square that has the blonde-haired blue-eyed actress saying: "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue." The wordplay is on "genes" and "jeans," leading some to accuse the American Eagle ad of treading on the disgraced area of eugenics. That is the Nazi-associated concept of selective breeding to improve humankind. Sayantani DasGupta, a Columbia University professor, produced a critical video that rightly calls eugenics "the pseudoscientific and immoral notion that we can improve the human race." However, she adds more questionably that "a woman of color would not have been hired for this advertisement." She posted the video on TikTok, of course. Let's discuss. Genes determine such physical characteristics as height, hair, face structure and skin color. If Sydney Sweeney can thank good genes for her good looks, so could Naomi Campbell. She was the ebony-skinned supermodel of the 1990s. Campbell represented such top fashion brands as Versace, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Prada and Burberry. Salma Hayek, the part-Mexican, part-Lebanese warm-complexioned beauty, is also a possessor of good genes. In addition to her Hollywood roles, Hayek became a spokeswoman for Revlon and an ambassador for Cartier. As to DasGupta's point, the American Eagle ad would have been more interesting had it featured a dark-skinned woman speaking the same words. There's no doubt that the creators behind the ad campaign for American Eagle knew full well that the genes message would make a stir and get people talking about the product. The advertising agency was cleverly trolling Columbia professors and the social media hordes with some cultural bauble they would surely jump on. People magazine dutifully reported that some women criticized the ad for also "catering to the male gaze." It shows Sweeney buttoning up her jeans. These feminists need not strain their necks looking up at the Times Square billboard. They could look down at street level and note all the women and girls catering to the male gaze via their cleavage and the butt cracks outlined in stretchy shorts. But we don't want to "body shame," do we. The genes-jeans controversy is so bush league that Trump waited a long time to pipe in about it. That didn't hold back Sen. Ted Cruz. He made a fool of himself on Fox News accusing "the Democrats" of saying that "beautiful women are no longer acceptable in our society." The many Democrats working for American Eagle or invested in its stock must be thrilled by what these dimwits are doing for sales figures. And thanks from the rest of us for diverting our gaze, however temporarily, from the lunacy that's overtaken our politics. Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop.