Actress Sydney Sweeney is once again back in the headlines, for a controversial ad campaign. A few months ago, she raised eyebrows with her collaboration with the men’s grooming brand Dr. Squatch, where she released a limited-edition soap reportedly infused with her actual bathwater. Now, as the new face of American Eagle, her latest campaign with the slogan ‘Sydney Sweeney has great jeans’, which plays on a pun between ‘jeans’ and ‘genes,’ is sparking debates online. The campaign was aimed to be cheeky and clever, American Eagle’s CMO had said it was ‘meant to push buttons.’ It certainly did, but not all the right ones.
Critics call out racial undertones in Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Great Jeans’ message
Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign gained a lot of criticism because people thought the pun in using ‘genes’ and ‘jeans’ was promoting Eugenic beliefs. These beliefs support the idea that genes of a certain community are better than others. This made many criticise the campaign for highlighting race supremacy and inflicting Western beauty standards. Since Sydney is a blonde, blue-eyed white woman, many felt that promoting her for having ‘great genes’ was problematic.
