As little as I am inclined to pay attention to transient fads in pop culture generally, now and again one appears out of nowhere, sweeping all before it to the gnashing of teeth and the lamentations of non-binary otherkins … one simply has to look at it, even if only in mild puzzlement. This is rather like inching past past one of those massive, multi-vehicle crackups on the interstate median. One must look and wonder how on earth? So it is with the massive Sidney Sweeney-blue jeans meltdown, which appears metaphorically to have gone nuclear with overly-vocal American wokeistas, so as to drop into the core of the earth and emerge out of the other side.

As it happens, I was once involved in a peripheral kind of way – in the profession of getting an audience to pay attention to and go along with the corporate program. Not exactly soap flakes, blue jeans, or crunchy breakfast cereals, but with the programs and goals of the US military. This meant being familiar with the basic principles involved in successful advertising; the basic buttons to push, in order to elicit the wished-for response in the audience. One of those principles (admittedly not one much in use when it came to generating informational spots for Armed Forces Radio) was the one about sex selling – but not by etching S-E-X or deaths’ heads or whatever on ice cubes – but just by presenting attractive people doing interesting and aspirational things. The key concept in this is ‘attractive people’ – which MS Sweeney undoubtedly is. Cute, blond, wholesome, possibly talented as an actress, definitely wise enough to keep her mouth shut and refuse to be bullied into commenting on controversial matters; the quintessential 1960s’ California surfer girl next door vibe is what I see in looking at pictures and stills from the inflammatory American Eagle ad.

So it ought not to be a shock to any system, to realize that – the male of our species (most especially younger males, the large majority of whom are heterosexual) do like looking at attractive females. The female of our species (those who are mainly but not exclusively heterosexual) and not limited only to the young – like to be assured that men are looking at them appreciatively. Yes, the militantly nasty professional Feminists do make a big thing about being offended by the male gaze, but frankly, they are nasty creatures anyway – ignore them.

The loudest of the professional wokists are up in arms, claiming that at a rather silly and obvious dad joke/play on words is of course a flagrant demonstration of Nazi eugenics, white supremacy and god knows what else, and that the nicely-endowed MS Sweeney is a MAGA bigot and the American Eagle brand ought to be boycotted by all correctly tolerant people. Frankly, it’s the most effective advertising for the brand, and a nice demonstration of the Streisand principle. I speculate that the element which has most annoyed the wokists is that MS Sweeney herself is not a 300-pound lesbian land whale of color. Dare someone remind them that white people buy jeans? And go to jazz festivals in downtown Cincinnati, among many other otherwise uncontroversial activities. Straight white people are, in fact, still a very substantial portion of the American public, and it’s nice to see them that perhaps ad agencies and the companies who hire them to flog their products are considering putting white people back in advertisements again as something other than a stupid foil for the sales pitch.
Discuss as you wish.

*to the 12th degree