Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. - My genes are blue. - Sydney Sweeney has her genes. [00:00:16] That ad for American Eagle has led to a bit of a kerfuffle, a debate, if you will, in regard to whether or not it's promoting racism or eugenics, which I think is a bit of a stretch, but let me give you all the details [00:00:33] and you can decide for yourselves. So this is a a new ad campaign featuring wildly popular actress Sydney Sweeney. She, is pretty good at selling products, which makes me understand why any brand would want her to be front and center of their advertising campaign. [00:00:53] But the campaign circles around the tagline Sydney Sweeney has great genes spelled j e a s right. Which can be. Also, jeans can have a double meaning. Meaning? Like jeans. You're born with good jeans. [00:01:09] And in the billboards as you saw their jeans in the DNA version is cut out, right? Or crossed out and then jeans is in, the pants is filled in. It's a play on words. We got it. Yeah. So she's beautiful. Obviously she has good genes in terms of, like, how it has led [00:01:26] to her physical appearance. And people have taken issue with that. So many people believe the nod to her great genes. Is the brand flirting with the idea of eugenics, white supremacy and Nazi propaganda? [00:01:42] Mostly because she is white, blond, with blue eyes. And of course, those are the women that should be banned from all advertising. Okay, like I don't I don't understand what this argument even is. Yeah. So we're asking you guys, on the live chat shows, live 6 to 8 p.m. [00:02:01] Every day. Do you believe that ads are promoting eugenics. Yes or no? Okay, so now I'll start to weigh in. I'll split two thirds. No, but one third saying yes. All right, so, guys, if they, were talking about how white people [00:02:17] and only white people or all white people have good genes, I'd be like, whoa, what the hell is that? Okay, maybe eugenics, all that stuff. But white people are also allowed to have good genes. No. Not allowed. Right. It's. [00:02:33] If you say only white people. That's crazy. Right? But if you say no, if you're going to do an ad and and my guess is if they were going to do this ad two years ago or five years ago, they would. This is why it's an interesting topic. I think they would not have put a white person in that ad. [00:02:49] I think that they would have had a conversation with the advertising executives, etc., and they would have decided, oh, people will say that we're being racist or eugenics or Nazi or something. So if we're going to say someone has good genes, we should make it a minority, okay. That's my guess. [00:03:05] Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a pretty decent read of that culture. Okay, so now white people are also allowed to have good genes. Okay. And folks are so crazy. And guys, it's a play on words. It's a play on words. If this is the hill you're choosing to die on, you're doing great damage. [00:03:23] So because it annoys everyone. Yeah it does, it does. It is annoying. It's incredibly annoying. She is a popular actress who is helping brands sell their products. [00:03:39] That's why they chose her. And she. Yes. She happens to have good genes. She is an attractive woman. White women are allowed to be attractive as well. Okay, like, what is this? But anyway. Washington Post style memo newsletter writer Shane O'Neill wrote in response to the ad. [00:03:55] The first thing I thought of when I heard the tagline Sydney Sweeney has great genes was the DHS Instagram account, which posted a subtly Racist painting. A few weeks ago. And an explicitly racist painting last week. [00:04:12] I don't believe you. - But. - I don't know what it is. But that's your problem, Shane. That's your problem. It's your problem that you saw an ad and you immediately thought of the DHS posting something that you also found to be racist on on X or Twitter or whatever. Like, not everything is a racist dog whistle. [00:04:29] This ad is not a racist dog whistle. In fact, it seems pretty racist to me that people immediately get offended and are up in arms because the person in the ad happens to have light skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. - Who cares? - Can I just say something? [00:04:45] I thought she was referring to some brand or something. Department of Homeland security. Yes. Okay, so, look, this is a good exercise, right? So when Department of Homeland Security or Ice goes after an undocumented immigrant who is a criminal and was convicted, that is not racist. [00:05:01] Okay. When Ice picks up a random Latino person who's actually a legal resident here. Or an American citizen. Or an American citizen, or any of those folks who are perfectly legal here, and then deport them to a country that they're not from, like El Salvador. That is racist. Okay. [00:05:17] And if you're saying as a Republican, no, it's not guys, they're not picking up Norwegians, right? Like it's and they're not picking up in that case in that hypothetical. And which is real. They're not picking up people who are undocumented or criminals. It's a perfectly documented person, but they're like a Latino. [00:05:33] Round them up. Right. Racist. But when you get to this ad, which is not racist on its face, but you are interpreting it as racist because it's about a white person. If a white person has good genes, that must mean eugenics and Nazis, etc. When you do that, you lose. [00:05:50] No one believes you and you lose the credibility. When you say Ice is being racist when they pick up random Latinos who are legally here. Then people stop listening to you and they don't believe you when you need them to believe you on things that are important and real. [00:06:06] Pick your battles. It's that simple. Pick your battles. And in my opinion, this is not the hill to die on. Look, let's talk about what's actually offensive, okay? What I find very offensive about this ad, there's two things actually is, number one, Sydney Sweeney needs to make statements [00:06:24] and not make every sentence a question. Number one, that's the I find that offensive. Number two, what is that outfit you're trying to sell your jeans. And that's what you're dressing her up in. - Unacceptable. - I don't know why it's so baggy. [00:06:41] The baggy jeans are not for me. They're for other people. Okay. The beautiful curves of a woman. Whether she's more curvaceous, less curvaceous. A woman's body. Beautiful. Let's show it. Okay. The baggy jeans. And then Jean on Jean violence. I don't allow it. [00:06:58] Okay. You got to pick. Either you're going to wear the jean jacket or you're going to wear the jean pants. But you can't have it both at the same time. It's unacceptable. So I'm coming at it in a way that in a funky place that I'm not sure a lot of people are, which is that I think it is partly because of the Trump era that they are now willing [00:07:14] to put a white person in an ad that they would normally put a minority in, right. So because they'd be too nervous and touchy about saying good white people have good genes. But I don't think that that's a bad thing. I think that we should all be equal. Like guess what? Sorry to everyone who hates me. I have good genes. [00:07:31] Not in terms of attractiveness, but in other regards. Right? My logical reasoning is excellent. But it's. But it's not exclusive to Turks. And it would. And it doesn't exclude Turks. So you stop excluding white people from things that are good and positive. [00:07:50] And I get it. In the past, it was you'd only associate the media, would only associate things that were positive with white people. - I get that that happened. - Yeah, that definitely happened. That definitely happened. But now the right response to that is equality. The right response to that isn't now we exclude white people [00:08:07] from that because of that ugly past. And by the way, I mean, if you've been In watching television shows. And if you've been watching ads, they're way more diverse than they were when I was growing up. When I was growing up, every model, every supermodel was white. [00:08:24] Now you look at ads, you look at supermodels, people with diverse backgrounds. It's a wonderful thing. But let's not ruin it by needlessly being, like, hateful and discriminatory against actresses or models who do happen to be white and are [00:08:40] good at selling product for these brands. So it's that simple. I don't think we need to make a big deal about this, but here we have it. People say, is that I like that our audience is split on it because it's a diversity of thought, even if I don't agree with you, but you make your argument in the chat, etc. [00:08:55] And you're part of the show. Good. That's how we sort things out, right? And so and don't get offended on either side. We're all trying to figure out the world together. And so I like that we have a community that's got an open mind, that's got diverse, diverse opinions. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. [00:09:12] Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.