The ad campaign that launched a thousand critiques: Sydney Sweeney's jeans

As much as the news media serves to inform the public, we're also here to give you something to talk about. Learning about the world around us provides the connective tissue for spirited interactions and growing deeper bonds with each other.

What are you going to bring up at the dinner table to get the conversation flowing? Did you read that article everybody has been talking about, too?

Who or what is it? This week, it's Sydney Sweeney and her controversial ad campaign with retailer American Eagle, in which she stares into the camera with her baby blues, and whispers:

"Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue."

The video has since been removed from American Eagle's social media channels, but can still be found online.

What's the big deal? The company's creative choices have prompted some to say the ad campaign promotes eugenics, a discredited scientific theory popular among white supremacists that the human race could be improved by breeding out less desirable traits. Others are saying the uproar is the culture's response from a society hellbent on sexualizing women.

And a lot of people are taking issue with the hypersexualized nature of the ads, especially since the company says the ad campaign is supposed to raise domestic violence awareness, a cause Sweeney is passionate about — and 100% of the purchase price of the jeans will be donated to Crisis Text Line, a charity that offers mental health services.

The original video was posted last week on social media, part of a campaign that focuses on, well, – American Eagle jeans, and Sweeney's famous figure wearing them.

In several other clips, Sweeney talks about the jeans she's wearing or teases the viewer about the camera lingering on her chest for too long. But the video that caused this discourse is the one embedded above, in which Sweeney recites a monologue that plays on the word "genes."

Laden with controversy 

The public ad campaign that referenced genetics at this moment — when President Trump's White House has pushed hard to slash diversity efforts in the federal government and target immigrants — was already tripping some alarm bells for viewers.

But if that wasn't enough, the monologue within this newer ad is also a nod to an infamous Calvin Klein campaign from 1980 that starred a then-15-year-old Brooke Shields.

For Shields' ad campaign, the source of the backlash wasn't so much the lesson on genetics, but more the overt sexualization of a minor in an advertisement, with some labeling it child pornography.

In her 2023 documentary Pretty Baby, Shields took stock of how damaging this public perception was to her development, and noted that she was so young at the time she didn't even understand the innuendos in the ad campaign.

What are people saying? Some people are mad. And others are mad that they're mad. The internet is an incredibly diverse place!

Immediately after Sweeney's campaign went live, many on social media noted that they felt the language behind the ad felt promotional of eugenics and expressed discomfort and disdain.

Others are saying people are overreacting — that they're too woke and the criticism is coming from triggered liberals.

Vice President Vance even chimed in on the matter during a recent podcast interview:

NPR's Mia Venkat spoke to Sarah Banet-Weiser, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. Banet-Weiser noted that the idea that sex sells has always been a golden rule of advertising. Sweeney has become known for taking roles or partnerships where her sexiness is the center of attention and she gets a lot of flack for that..

"It's an attention economy here that is focused on her," Banet-Weiser said. "But it is also about the profitability of anger and profitability of hate. And we see this over and over again."

So, what now?
The brand's stock soared immediately in the wake of the viral fervor, but it's still too soon to tell if the company will see any real benefit from the ad campaign.

On Friday afternoon, the retailer released a statement addressing the controversy saying the campaign, "is and always was about the jeans. [Sweeney's] jeans. Her story. We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone."

Sweeney's representatives did not respond to NPR's request for comment.

Sweeney's flood of commercial gigs has remained steady with her growing profile. She's starred in ad campaigns for brands like Hey Dude, Laneige, Baskin-Robbins and Samsung.

They're no bathwater soap ads, but it's honest work.

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