Friday, January 2, 2009

Fascination with celebrity offspring shows Americans support eugenics


The New York Post’s Page Six column recently reported that Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz tried to sell photos of their new baby boy, Bronx Mowgli, to every single celebrity magazine. But there was little interest. An “insider” told the Post that nobody wanted the photos because covers of them do not sell well.
You could argue that no one is interested in Simpson and Wentz because they are B-list celebrities. She’s the lip-synching pop singer better known as Jessica Simpson’s younger sister. And he’s a second banana in a popular rock band, Fall Out Boy.
But the truth is Americans are really only interested in seeing the children of the beautiful people. They prefer beautiful celebrities to marry each other and reproduce.
Ashlee Simpson is a pretty woman and was so even before her nose job made her just generic pretty. But her husband is short, strange and kind of odd looking.
A main reason the top celebrity tots last year as ranked by Forbes.com were Suri Cruise and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is because they are the children of beautiful people. It helps that their parents (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, respectively) are A-list stars.
But let’s face it, these are very attractive people. And Americans want to see what their offspring look like.
The public gets excited by the prospect of attractive celebrity couplings. When sizzling Latina movie and recording star Jennifer Lopez was dating People’s Sexiest Man Alive (2002) Ben Affleck, I’m sure people wondered what their kids would look like.
When Lopez eventually had children with singer Marc Anthony, people weren’t interested. Why? Because he’s kind of ugly. TheSuperficial.com says he “looks like Skeletor’s Latino cousin: Bones Gonzalez” or “a freaking alien.”
Celebrity Web sites have been atwitter with rumors that handsome, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady and Brazilian supermodel Giselle Bündchen are engaged.
You don’t see the same excitement over the marriage of megawatt star Beyonce Knowles and rapper-music producer Jay-Z. She’s gorgeous, but he’s gross.
Contrast that with the pairing of actress Halle Berry, Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive 2008, with model Gabriel Aubry. One wag wrote that their child, a girl named Nahla Ariela Aubry, was the first baby ever born with a modeling contract.
Every time someone buys a magazine with a cover showing the children of beautiful celebrities, they’re subconsciously showing their support for eugenics. (Eugenics is defined as the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.)
Late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien has gotten a lot of mileage over the years with his “If They Mated” comedy bits. Of course, he has more fun with the odd pairings than the beautiful people.

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