Sydney Sweeney has finally addressed the controversy surrounding her American Eagles jeans advertising campaign.
The campaign came out in July
You might remember that back in July, the actress starred in an ad campaign for American Eagle jeans taglined, ‘Sydney Sweeney has great jeans’, which was a pun on having ‘great genes’.
In one ad, she says, “Genes are passed down from parent to offspring, often determining traits like eye color, personality, and even hair color. My jeans are blue.”
This campaign drew controversy
The ad campaign was criticized by many and discourse quickly grew around it.
RELATED STORIES
Given the current climate and recent rise in eugenicist thinking, some felt the campaign sounded uncomfortably close to a ‘dog whistle’, according to brobible.
She has now addressed the campaign
In an interview with GQ published on Tuesday, November 4, Sweeney was asked about her reaction to the controversy.
She replied, “I did a jean ad. I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but I love jeans. All I wear are jeans. I’m literally in jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life.”
Sweeney also commented about Trump’s praise
Shortly after the campaign, it emerged that Sweeney was a registered Republican, which President Donald Trump and VP JD Vance gushed over as they also complimented her ad campaign.
When asked how she felt about their reaction, Sweeney said, “It was surreal.”
The interviewer asked if she was ‘thankful’
The interviewer also asked if she felt ‘thankful’ to have such powerful people show their support for her in public.
Sweeney replied, “I don’t think…. It’s not that I didn’t have that feeling, but I wasn’t thinking of it like that, of any of it.”
Sweeney said she was too busy
“I kind of just put my phone away. I was filming every day,” Sweeney went on.
“I’m filming Euphoria, so I’m working 16-hour days and I don’t really bring my phone on set, so I work and then I go home and I go to sleep. So I didn’t really see a lot of it.”
She spoke about her new movie too
Elsewhere in the interview, Sweeney responded to a question about whether she thinks people will avoid watching her new movie Christy because of what she might think on ‘certain issues’.
Christy is a biopic about former professional boxer Christy Martin that addresses domestic violence.
Sweeney doesn’t think people would avoid it
In response, Sweeney said, “No. No, I think that if somebody is closed off because of something they read online to a powerful story like Christy, then I hope that something else can open their eyes to being open to art and being open to learning, and I’m not going to be affected by that.”
She was directly asked about criticism
Sweeney was also directly asked whether she’d like to address the criticism that ‘white people shouldn’t joke about genetic superiority’ in the current political climate.
She said, “I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”
