Does Sydney Sweeney have “great jeans,” or has the American Eagle brand simply had a very, very bad idea?
The label’s latest advertising campaign has been setting social networks ablaze, and not just because it features the Euphoria actor in a tight tank top. Called “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” it’s based around a play on words that may seem harmless—but has been criticized by onlookers who see a sinister message lurking beneath the pun.
One ad from the autumn campaign shows Sweeney leaning over the engine of her Ford Mustang V8. She slams the hood while wiping her hands on the back of her jeans—not without a closeup from the cameraman—before settling behind the wheel and disappearing. A second begins with Sweeney speaking about her “jeans” as the camera slowly pans down to her cleavage, before she reprimands it with a smiling “Hey, eyes up here!” The series’s most criticized ad shows the actress reclining on a couch as she squirms while fastening her pants and murmuring, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My genes are blue.” Then a male narrator concludes, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
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A few of the videos have been removed from the brand’s official accounts. But even so, some Internet users see a message clear as a billboard in Times Square (where the campaign was actually posted): the ads seem to glorify a particular racial ideal.
On TikTok, videos racking up hundreds of thousands of views have accused the brand of sending out a eugenicist dog whistle by focusing on a white, blond, blue-eyed woman who talks about her “good genes.” Other users have slammed the videos for being regressive and degrading to women. Creative that borrows from the male gaze does not always meet with unanimous approval—as was the case with singer Sabrina Carpenter ‘s cover for her forthcoming album, Man’s Best Friend, which also sparked off much debate on social networks. Neither Sweeney nor American Eagle has addressed the controversy publicly as of Tuesday morning. Vanity Fair has reached out to representatives from both for comment.
The most talked-about video echoes an infamous Calvin Klein campaign from 1980 shot by Richard Avedon. Avedon’s most famous commercial featured Brooke Shields, then aged 15, whispering to the camera as she unbuttoned her jeans: “You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” The ad came under fire for sexualizing a child. And though Sweeney is 26, her campaign—clearly inspired by Shields’s—is at the heart of a similar scandal.
