Sydney Sweeney’s Controversial American Eagle Ad Explained

Sydney Sweeney’s new American Eagle campaign is sparking a heated online debate over its perceived messaging.

The retailer and the 27-year-old actress are in the spotlight for their fall campaign titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” which was released on Wednesday, July 23. Videos published to American Eagle’s social media channels feature the Euphoria star modeling various denim styles while working on a car, auditioning for a spot in the campaign and speaking straight to camera about the new collection.

The tagline of the campaign, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” has prompted critics to claim that the usage of the word “jeans” as a play on “genes” is racially charged and hints at genetic superiority. Others are slamming the campaign for catering to the male gaze and taking inspiration from Brooke Shields’ controversial 1980 denim campaign.

Meanwhile, others feel the reaction to the campaign is overblown and unfounded.

Despite — or perhaps because of — the controversy, American Eagle’s stock increased 10 percent in just a few days, adding more than $200 million to the group’s value, per Vanity Fair.

Here are all the details on Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign.

Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign: Why are people upset?

One video that appears to have been removed from some of American Eagle’s social media channels (it remains on the brand’s Facebook) is sparking the most controversy. In it, Sweeney is seen zipping up her jeans while lying down.

“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color,” she says as the camera pans to her face. “My jeans are blue.”

Then, a narrator in voiceover says, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”

Some critics claim the usage of the word “jeans” as a play on “genes” hints at eugenics. Per the National Institute of Health (NIH), eugenics “is broadly defined as the use of selective breeding to improve the human race.” It has been discredited as junk science.

“The tagline is simply bizarre,” writes Washington Post fashion critic Rachel Tashjian. “Are they trying to say that what matters is not what you look like but what you put on your body? Or that you are assigned a denim style at birth and you must never waver from it? Also: Is Sweeney the every girl or the only girl?”

Author, physician and scholar Sayantani DasGupta, who teaches a course on Narrative Medicine at Columbia University, took to TikTok to break down the controversy in a video that now has close to 4M views. She shares that she’ll be using the ad as a teaching moment in her classroom this semester as a tool to spark discussion about race and the current political climate.

DasGupta claims the ad is “imbued with eugenic messaging.” She defines eugenics as “the pseudoscientific and immoral notion that we can improve the human race,” which typically “leans into as much racialized ideas of superiority as it does into ideas of ableism or cis heteronormativity.”

The controversy, the scholar claims, lies in the fact that Sweeney is a white woman and that “a woman of color would not have been hired for this advertisement.”

DasGupta also mentions Sweeney’s recent collaboration with Dr. Squatch, which involved creating a bar of soap made from her bathwater. “Soap has historically been a very fraught, racialized product because of the ways that darker-skinned people are associated with race pollution… whereas whiteness is associated with cleanliness.”

What else are critics saying?

Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign is also drawing comparisons to Brooke Shields’ controversial Calvin Klein ad from 1980. Shields’ age (she was 15 at the time) ruffled feathers due to the commercial’s provocative tagline: “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

Shields’ ad also featured similar messaging about passing down characteristics from generation to generation.

Culture advisor and strategist Rachel Lowenstein slams the American Eagle campaign for catering to the male gaze. She claims that brands are “reverting back to the oldest trick in the advertising playbook: sex sells.”

Why some are defending the campaign

In a video shared to TikTok, YouTube personality Philip DeFranco discussed the controversy around Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign. While he mentions the criticism regarding eugenics, many commenters claim the ad is being blown out of proportion.

“It’s literally only a Sydney Sweeney is hot joke, nothing to get mad over,” one wrote.

“Some people have too much time on their hands, its jeans commerical,” said another.

A third wrote, “It’s NOT that serious guys 😂”

Has American Eagle responded?

American Eagle has not issued an official statement in response to the controversy, but American Eagle’s vice president of marketing, Ashley Schapiro, spoke about the ad in a LinkedIn post shared on July 23, the day it was unveiled.

“During a Zoom call with Sydney we asked the question ‘How far do you want to push it?’ ” Schapiro’s post began.

“Without hesitation, she smirked smirk 😏 and said, ‘Let’s push it, I’m game.’ ”

She went on to explain that the campaign was infused with “our own personal cheeky energy and “a desire to stretch beyond anything we had done before.”

Schapiro also mentioned the controversial play on words, shouting out the “playful stunt double that revealed the genius behind ‘genes.’ “

Has Sydney Sweeney responded?

Sweeney has not made a formal statement in response to the controversy around the ad.

American Eagle and Sweeney have not responded to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.