"In The Genes/Jeans"

 *Edited this post has been edited slightly since I saw the actual live ad.  

Although I still think the Sidney Sweeney thing is a bit of an overreaction/distraction from larger issues, I understand the furor a bit more. 

She says: 

"Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color."

Girl, you need to go back to college long enough to study the difference between temperament vs. personality - what is genetic and what isn't.

Baseline temperament is genetic.

Personality is NOT genetic - it's environmental/cultural, developing over time.

(Most experts are in agreement that personality develops by age 9, but can change after life experience).

*** More importantly, despite myths,  there is no scientific evidence of any correlation whatsoever between skin/eye/hair color and temperament OR personality.***

I'm sorry she's so ignorant (and apparently Republican), and yet the song remains the same - focus people - bigger fish to fry!?!

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ORIGINAL POST

There is apparently much furor over this American Eagle ad for jeans with actress Sydney Sweeney ...

Honestly?

I don't get it. 

I mean, I get it -  the play on genes and jeans - and that it's not the best time to promote ideal white-girl beauty, a bit tone deaf.

Also that some of that beauty may have come at great expense (or at the very least, veneers on her teeth).

However, I don't think it was conscious and intentional "eugenics" promotion.

Sydney Sweeney is just one of those rare, natural beauties, even without makeup, white, black, brown, or purple.

And I'm not defending her as a person - she could be an a-hole, for all I know, I know nothing about her.

My point is this ...

Let's pick and choose our battles carefully, right now?

At its worst, American Eagle is displaying unconscious racial beauty bias, but seriously -  with all that's going on as far as true racism, right now, THIS is what you want to  expend so much energy on?!?

Okay, point made - now let it go?

Focus, people -  there are bigger fish to fry!

It's not like Sydney Sweeney OR American Eagle is pardoning racist cops or giving them one-day sentences for shooting innocent people of color in Louisville.

Or sending troops to descend on LA over mostly people protests against ICE methods for rounding up and deporting brown people, some of them actually being legal citizens.

Or deporting other brown people who protest, but only from certain Muslim countries, ignoring others completely.

Or shooting bad-news messengers like firing the Secretary of the US Labor  Department because her stats reported job-growth slowdown last month.

(As an aside, isn't it interesting he didn't fire her while she reported job growth was increasing, only last month, when they slowed down. What's next, fire everyone from the Federal Trade Commission for reporting the markets are down, too, after another round of tariffs?)

Or defunding PBS to the point they have to shut down by September, partially over diversity. 

And I'm 100% sure she wasn't anywhere near Epstein or his plane or Mar a Lago.

But speaking of PBS, some things are in the genes - others are not.

It depends on the mix you've got or the environment in which you were raised - the old nature VS nurture/intervention argument.

However, despite the myths, there are no known temperament or personality traits that correlate with skin, hair, or eye color.

One of my favorite shows on PBS, "Finding Your Roots," will be gone soon.

After giving celebrities DNA tests and tracing their roots on paper - as well as interesting tidbits, for better or worse, on their familial history, Henry Louis Gates ends the show by revealing to the celebrities their other famous celebrity DNA distant cousins. 

It's super interesting who is alike and who is different, outside, inside, or both. 

Sometimes they look alike but are completely different in temperament. 

Sometimes they look nothing alike, but are very similar in personality.

Sometimes they appear to have nothing in common at all.

Regardless, don't let the looks thing fool you - again, skin color is only skin deep.

Your outward appearance phenotype may be completely different, but your inner genotype may be very similar when it comes to your health, and sometimes even temperament and personality, but the latter also seems to depend on whose genes you got in that specific department - and more interestingly, how and where you were raised.

In fact, you may even have a genetic predisposition towards certain health traits, but the way you were raised as far as diet and how you treat your body can affect the outcome.

For example, in some cases, those predisposed genetic "switches" never seem to get flipped "on." 

We know this happens in cancer, mental illness, and Alzheimer's, for example - but we don't know why, yet, that some people dodge those bullets and others don't.

We know from recent research that gene expression plays a role in gender identity, but have no clue how that works yet.

Regardless, I think the least surprising - and funniest case - of both inner and outer genotype/phenotype similarity, both in appearance and personality/temperament (somewhat) - is politician Bernie Sanders and comedian Larry David. 

Both are smart, passionate, excitable people, who even look similar and sound similar (both were born in Brooklyn, NYC- with Larry David actually playing Bernie Sanders on SNL, way before this DNA reveal 2 years ago!

And sometimes they're more alike in ways you can't see immediately, like Billy Crudup and Terry Crews.

They look nothing alike at all - but both majored in arts/theater/film school in college, but were also accomplished athletes, with Terry Krewes actually playing for the NFL before becoming an actor. 

And sometimes they couldn't seem completely different - testament to the power of environment and culture on personality - NOT genes!

Melanie Lynsky is a character actress from New Zealand - Questlove is a drummer for The Roots (on Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon)and is a music journalist/filmmaker from Philadelphia. 

They couldn't be more opposite in appearance and personality and interests, born in countries literally half a world away from each other, the only exception being they both made careers in the arts.

And I don't want to spoil all the surprises in the video, but the most interesting one was Bill Maher and Bill O'Reilly.

If you squint, you can almost see a resemblance, but otherwise, they originally were polar opposites politically and religiously.

Born in NYC, Bill O'Reilly is a far-right Republican Christian raised in Long Island.

Bill Maher, also born in NYC, was raised in New Jersey, and was initially a far-left atheist (but the older he gets, the more conservative he's becoming.

But in temperment, I can totally see it.

In fact, Mark just said "I can't stand either one of them." 😂

They're both super grumpy - and getting grumpier as they age .

Neither one can tolerate anyone who doesn't agree with them for long, without blowing a gasket. 

Bill O'Reilly is famously Islamophobic, with Bill Maher not far behind, despite supposedly being liberal, and has even said some racist stuff especially towards Palestinian Americans since 9/11, plus using the N-word for a joke.

Thus, is it really a surprise to anyone that their ancestors were Klansmen?

I wasn't surprised, let's just put it that way.

The puzzle of gene expression is still a mystery to us, and yet it's good to know that we can actually dodge less desirable genetic attributes or that awareness of them can foster conscious change - OR - if a desirable trait, foster and nourish it, right?

At least to me, anyway.