Sydney Sweeney made a splash with her new advertising campaign for US fashion retailer American Eagle. The ad blitz included “clever, even provocative language” and was aimed to “push buttons,” the company’s chief marketing officer said to trade outlets. And going by the reactions, the campaign has managed to get everyone talking. Titled “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” the campaign sparked a wave of backlash, debates about race, Western beauty standards, and even support with some calling it a clap back at “woke” culture. Most of the negative reception focused on videos that used the word “genes” instead of “jeans” when discussing the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actor known for her roles in the global hit series ‘Euphoria’ and ‘White Lotus’. Some critics saw the wordplay as a deliberate pun on race. A viral video of an Indian American going viral online has her saying, “It is so difficult to grow up as a person of colour, specifically a woman, and view yourself as beautiful in any sense of the word.” Even rapper Doja Cat seemingly mocked the ad in a viral social media post. Other accused netizens of reading too much into the campaign’s message. “I love how the leftist meltdown over the Sydney Sweeney ad has only resulted in a beautiful white blonde girl with blue eyes getting 1000x the exposure for her ‘good genes,'” former Fox News host Megyn Kelly wrote in a tweet.Another slammed the controversy saying, “Can’t even be white anymore! Y’all are mad at Sydney Sweeney because she’s white, she’s blonde, she’s blue eyed, and she looks good. I am DEI’d out!!”Another chimed in, “As a PROUD black man, I see nothing wrong with Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle parading her “good genes/jeans.” Celebrating blue eyes and blonde hair isn’t “white supremacy.” Those are conventionally attractive, GOOD GENES. That doesn’t mean they’re the ONLY good genes.”A day after Sweeney was announced as the company’s latest celebrity collaborator, the brand’s stock closed more than 4% up. The campaign reportedly shares a lineage with Calvin Klein jeans ads from 1980 that featured a 15-year-old Brooke Shields saying, “You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Some TV networks declined to air the spots because of its suggestive double entendre and Shields’ age. Meanwhile, reports state that the jeans brand also plans to launch a limited edition Sydney jean to raise awareness of domestic violence, with sales proceeds going to a nonprofit crisis counselling service.
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