{"id":45493,"date":"2025-07-29T16:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/45493\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T16:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:45:07","slug":"how-an-ad-campaign-went-so-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/45493\/","title":{"rendered":"How an ad campaign went so wrong."},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was the vocal fry heard<\/a> and<\/a> mocked<\/a> \u2019round the internet: \u201cGenes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.\u201d A pause, as a lounging Sydney Sweeney zips up her jeans, then looks up with her big blue eyes: \u201cMy jeans are blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genes, jeans\u2014it\u2019s a pun, get it? That wordplay is the foundation of Sweeney\u2019s new ad campaign<\/a>, filmed for the clothing retailer American Eagle to promote new products made in collaboration with the actress. (Proceeds for one item, a pair of jeans with a butterfly appliqu\u00e9\u00a0meant to represent domestic violence awareness, will go to the Crisis Text Line, a mental-health support organization.) \u201cMy body\u2019s composition is determined by my genes,\u201d Sweeney says in another video<\/a> as the camera zooms in on her oft-discussed<\/a> bosom<\/a>. \u201cHey! Eyes up here,\u201d she commands, meeting the camera\u2019s jolted-up gaze with a knowing smile. Then the tagline, unignorably large, fills the screen: \u201cSydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A Hollywood starlet using sexuality to hawk denim\u2014is there anything so American? But times have changed, and these days, a blond, blue-eyed white woman being held up as the exemplar of \u201cgreat genes\u201d is a concept that maybe shouldn\u2019t have made it past the copywriters room. With a velocity that is honestly impressive, the ads became both<\/a> a widespread meme<\/a> and the latest entry in our ongoing culture wars. One side declared that American Eagle\u2019s campaign carried racial undertones<\/a>, promoted eugenics<\/a>, and served as fascistic propaganda<\/a>. The other side embraced Sweeney as a jeans model and celebrated the commercials as a nail in the coffin for \u201cwoke\u201d advertising<\/a>. Meanwhile, American Eagle\u2019s stock briefly rallied<\/a> after the ads went live, although the political leanings of meme-stock investors remain, as always, a fascinating enigma.<\/p>\n

As much as extremely online critics may denounce these ads as a Nazi dog whistle, I have to say, I\u2019m not so sure. For one, the campaign is clearly paying direct homage to an old Brooke Shields ad for Calvin Klein jeans<\/a>, filmed in the 1980s, in which the uncomfortably young Blue Lagoon actress delivers a similarly biology textbook\u2013worthy spiel: \u201cGenes are fundamental in determining the characteristics of an individual and passing on these characteristics to succeeding generations.\u201d For two, it\u2019s fairly obvious that the \u201cgreat genes\u201d in Sweeney\u2019s ads are referring to\u2014not to be crude about it\u2014two of her biggest assets (and maybe a third, if you\u2019re an ass guy), which feature prominently.<\/p>\n

But even if the certified geniuses who came up with this campaign didn\u2019t mean to promote the Aryan ideal in their lingering shots of Sweeney\u2019s denim-clad body, I\u2019m not surprised that it\u2019s come to this. And it\u2019s not even anything specifically to do with American Eagle, a mall brand that most people probably haven\u2019t thought of since the day they graduated from college. No, it has much more to do with Sweeney herself, a celebrity whose fraught image has been elevated and battered, stretched and twisted, objectified and torn apart in equal measure since her star began rising. For months now, a Sydney Sweeney backlash has been brewing; this ill-conceived ad campaign was just the inflection point.<\/p>\n

Sweeney has been acting since 2009, when she was 12 years old, but her breakthrough didn\u2019t come until 2019, when she starred as Cassie, a high schooler with a reputation for being easy to hook up with, in the Zendaya-led HBO teen drama Euphoria. This role, more than any other, has shaped Sweeney\u2019s image, cementing her as a sex symbol who appeals to men\u2019s tastes. She didn\u2019t shy away from nudity, she didn\u2019t talk about politics or divisive issues or even artsy fluff, and, frankly, she was attractive in a classic Americana kind of way. Her stock only went up with some conservative admirers when a small dustup in 2022<\/a> suggested that Sweeney, who was born in Spokane, Washington, and grew up in rural Idaho, had family members who wore \u201cBlue Lives Matter\u201d apparel and MAGA-style red hats to her mother\u2019s birthday party. (Sweeney, addressing the controversy in a Variety interview a year later<\/a>, said that the people pictured weren\u2019t her family and were wearing the red hats\u2014emblazoned with the words Make Sixty Great Again\u2014to be \u201cfunny.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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But there were also hints that there was more to Sweeney than what the general public and horny men between the ages of 18 and 55 saw of her. She displayed her acting prowess in other projects, including the television adaptation of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, Mike White\u2019s White Lotus, and especially Reality, a 2023 film in which she played Reality Winner<\/a>, the National Security Agency whistleblower. She founded her own production company, and her role executive producing and co-starring in the 2023 rom-com hit Anyone but You<\/a> proved that she had some level of producing chops too. She tinkered with cars<\/a>! She seemed self-aware about being typecast as \u201ca dumb blonde with big tits\u201d! (\u201cI\u2019m naturally brunette,\u201d she jokingly rebutted in one interview<\/a>.) She grew up in a family that had experienced financial hardship and, even after her career breakthrough, she confessed<\/a> to taking so many brand deals because she was still always worried about money! \u201cPeople are making far more money than Sweeney for doing work that both demands and contributes far less,\u201d Defector\u2019s Kelsey McKinney wrote in 2022, in a widely shared piece<\/a> that defended Sweeney in the struggle against capital. \u201cWhy should any CEO make more than the actresses whose labor and beauty they sell?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweeney was sympathetic, in other words\u2014or just at the edge of sympathy. You looked at her, and you saw a hard-working, hustling young actress who was constantly reduced to a great rack<\/a>, who was co-opted by conservatives in their anti-woke crusade<\/a>, who inspired the strangest<\/a> debates<\/a> over a woman\u2019s beauty (or lack thereof, according to what I suspect are some of the most average-looking incels alive). Out of some uneasy sense of solidarity, or perhaps well-meaning condescension, or possibly even the desire to not just assume the worst about a hot blond woman, you wanted to root for Sweeney.<\/p>\n

But over the past six months or so, feelings toward the actress have undergone a shift. In March, she was spotted attending the wedding of Glen Powell\u2019s sister, reigniting rumors<\/a> that Sweeney had been romantically involved with Powell, her Anyone but You co-star, at a time when both actors were in respective relationships with other people. (Powell\u2019s ex, a model known as Gigi Paris, didn\u2019t help things when she went on a podcast in June<\/a> and said of the co-stars, \u201cI hope they\u2019re in love.\u201d) As if that whiff of accused infidelity weren\u2019t enough, some of Sweeney\u2019s many, many brand deals<\/a> started to smell a little more pungently shameless, with Sweeney pulling a Belle Delphine<\/a> and selling Dr. Squatch\u2014a male-targeted personal-care brand\u2014soap containing her bathwater<\/a>. (Before you ask, yes, it sold out.) Then, to top it all off, in June Sweeney was a guest at Jeff Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez\u2019s Venice wedding, a locally despised<\/a> event so<\/a> tacky<\/a> that any famous person seen in attendance immediately lost all semblance of glamour. (Sweeney was also papped strolling around<\/a> the Floating City with fellow wedding attendee Orlando Bloom, fresh off a breakup with Katy Perry<\/a>\u2014Sydney, girl, this doesn\u2019t look good for you!)<\/p>\n

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There was still some benefit of the doubt, however tiny, that could be extended to Sweeney when considering just one or two of her brand-cheapening faux pas in isolation. She was family friends with all of the Powells! Her bathwater soap was just her being in on the joke! She was in Venice to secure funding for a business venture<\/a> funded in part by Bezos\u2019 private equity firm! But the public goodwill for the whole package she was peddling, and for her as a celebrity, was steadily diminishing. \u201cShe\u2019s a pick-me<\/a>\u201d has been one common sentiment<\/a> surrounding her, voiced often on social media and in celebrity-gossip forums. What that means, essentially, is that she has lost the women, the demographic that typically constitutes the fan bases of our most beloved stars and that is willing to support nearly any amount<\/a> of frivolity so long as it\u2019s delivered with the right wink and a nod or sincere note of vulnerability. Once, this kind of pop-culture consumer might have been persuaded to half-heartedly root for Sweeney to prove haters and salivating male fans alike wrong against surely insurmountable odds. Now, though, between rumors over her messy entanglements, her off-tone sponsorships and deals, and her thirsty connections<\/a> with the Bezoses of the world, she has proved something else instead: that Sweeney the star is not the cool girl some onlookers hoped she might be\u2014someone who\u2019s in on the gag only, like, in a sort of feminist way.<\/p>\n

But what did anyone expect from an actress who never made any such promises about who she was, whether politically, commercially, or romantically? Celebrity is neither a pledge of values nor a bond of intimacy. It\u2019s a sales mechanism, one that facilitates the vending of tabloids, of movies, of albums, of bathwater soap and butterfly jeans. To believe otherwise is only to set yourself up for disappointment, as some former Sweeney defenders may be discovering this week. So, no, I\u2019m not reading eugenics into the thoughtless American Eagle ad, but at this point, it hardly even matters. At the end of the day, a sizable, very vocal chunk of America has spoken: They are no longer interested in buying whatever Sweeney is selling.<\/p>\n

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