There’s a fuss over a J. Crew ad — not because the female models are perpetually styled like they’re playing dress-up in the attic or that they have Miss Havisham’s taste for accessorizing — but because of Creative Director Jenna Lyons’ 5-year-old son who’s photographed with painted pink toe nails.  Lyons boasts in the ad, “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink.  Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.”

Some conservatives are taking the opportunity to use this as a way to demonstrate liberal propaganda about transgenderism.  But you know, they’re 67 years too late. 

 

One of the all-time classic family films, 1944’s NATIONAL VELVET, features a small boy who gets his toes painted bright red by his oldest sister, Edwina, played by Angela Lansbury (Jessica Fletcher no less!).  Their father (Donald Crisp) stumbles upon the scene and queries them out of curiosity.

FATHER:  What kind of savagery is this?

SON:  Paint.

DAUGHTER:  Only in fun, Father.  We thought it would look pretty.

SON:  I don’t like it.  I want my insect bottle!  Edwina hid it.

FATHER: (to the daughter)  The child doesn’t like it.  Wipe it off.

SON:  I don’t mind it.

FATHER:  (appealing to his wife)  What does the child mean?  First he says he doesn’t like it, then he says he doesn’t mind it!

 

The father is upset by his son’s capriciousness and not by any affront to gender appropriate behavior.  The boy later has a diva-worthy meltdown before bedtime, but it’s no cause for permanent alarm.  He’s carried off to bed, as any normal over-tired child must be.

Did NATIONAL VELVET confuse anyone’s gender identity or sexuality with toenail polish?  If so, it had nearly seven decades to work on the human population.  But in truth, the years have only shown that a select, but insidious number of people is ultra-high strung and prone to investing their outrage on the wrong things.

###