{"id":29782,"date":"2025-07-29T10:57:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/29782\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T10:57:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:57:15","slug":"sydney-sweeneys-controversial-american-eagle-jeans-campaign-has-people-reflecting-on-brooke-shields-1980-calvin-klein-jeans-advertisement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/29782\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle jeans campaign has people reflecting on Brooke Shield’s 1980 Calvin Klein jeans advertisement"},"content":{"rendered":"

R\ufeffising starlet Sydney Sweeney<\/a> has come under fire for her recent advertisement<\/a> campaign with American Eagle.<\/p>\n

Advertising the company’s jeans in a new video, the 27-year-old has been criticised on a number of fronts.<\/p>\n

In the video, the Euphoria<\/a> star begins by \ufefftelling viewers, “I’m not here to tell you to buy American Eagle jeans,” as she leans forward in her chair as she gets up, with the camera lingering on her chest.<\/p>\n

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\"ASydney Sweeney has come under fire for her latest campaign. (YouTube)<\/p>\n

As she walks away, the camera stays at the same height, staying on her bottom as she walks over to a mirror and says, “And I definitely won’t say they’re the most comfortable jeans I’ve ever worn, or that they make your butt look amazing.”<\/p>\n

She continues to insist she’s not trying to sell you jeans, before the words, \ufeff”Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” flashed on the screen, with the actress quipping, “See what I did there, right?”<\/p>\n

The advertisements have dran criticism, with many pointing out that touting a young. blue-eyed, blonde-haired white woman as the symbol of “great” American genes may not have been the best move.<\/p>\n

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\"A“My body’s composition is determined by my jeans.” (YouTube)<\/p>\n

Independent news outlet Salon<\/a> said the\ufeff eugenics-era language was a callback to the eugenics movements in the Us, which promoted the idea of “good genes” to encourage reproduction among white, able-bodied people while providing an excuse for the forced sterilisation of other people.<\/p>\n

Some have gone as far as calling the advertisement campaign “Nazi propoganda”.<\/p>\n

But this is clip is not the worst offender. In another clip for the same campaign \u2013 which now seems to be hidden from American Eagle’s YouTube channel \u2013 Sweeney explains what “genes” (or “jeans”) are.<\/p>\n

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\"SydneySweeney’s jeans campaign has dram comparison to another famous one from the ’80s. (PA Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“My body’s composition is determined by my jeans,” the Anyone But You actress explained as the camera narrowed in on her breasts.<\/p>\n

She playfully scolded the camera with, “Hey, eyes are up here,” before continuing, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour,”<\/p>\n

The camera then panned to her blue eyes before she said, “My jeans are blue.”<\/p>\n

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This particular advertisement is reminicient of Brooke Shields’ even more controversial 1980 advertisement \ufefffor Calvin Klein jeans.<\/p>\n

The then-15-year-old was seen struggling to pull on a pair of jeans while laying down, all the while talking about\ufeff, “selective mating, in which a single gene type proves superior in transmitting its genes to future generations”.<\/p>\n

Her ad, like Sweeney’s, also a sexual undertones. There was uproar when in another advertisement the teen stated in a line that is now famous, \ufeff”You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”<\/p>\n

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\"BrookeBrooke Shields was just 15 years old when she posed for Calvin Klein. (Calvin Klein)<\/p>\n

The actress reflected on the ensuing controversy in a 2021 \ufeffinterview with Vogue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t think it was about underwear or sexual in nature,” she recalled.<\/p>\n

“What was shocking to me was to be berated by ‘Oh, you knew this was happening. This is what you thought. You were thinking these thoughts.’<\/p>\n

“I was a kid, and where I was, I was naive. I was a very protected, sequestered, young woman in a bubble. I think the assumption was that I was much more savvy than I ever really was.<\/p>\n

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“The paparazzi would scream at me and my mother, ‘How could you!” It just struck me as so ridiculous.”<\/p>\n

Sweeney’s ad is also be chastised for its sexualised nature, especially since the money from the purchase of the jeans is meant to be donated to Crisis Text Line, a charity offering confidential mental health services, with the butterfly motif on the back pocket of the jeans representing domestic violence awareness.<\/p>\n

But it turns out all publicity is good publicity, with American Eagle’s stocks rising \ufeffjumping 12 per cent since the controversial campaign.<\/p>\n

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE<\/a>: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"R\ufeffising starlet Sydney Sweeney has come under fire for her recent advertisement campaign with American Eagle. Advertising the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-29782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}