US clothing brand American Eagle and actress Sydney Sweeney are both facing backlash for a recent jeans advertising campaign.
They’re being called ‘tone deaf’
The clothing company and the actress are both being called ‘tone deaf’ for an ad campaign where Sweeney is promoting the brand.
The campaign, which launched a week ago, features blonde-haired and blue-eyed Sweeney dressed in AE denim with the tagline, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
People didn’t like the connotation
Online users didn’t like the connotations of the ad, with many agreeing that it alludes to eugenics theories and theories of racial superiority.
The campaign features a number of videos that play on the words ‘genes’ and ‘jeans’.
Here’s what she says in the ad
In the most viral video from the advertising campaign, which has since been deleted, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.”
“My jeans are blue,” she says, before the tagline comes up: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
Online critics are saying the ad alludes to eugenics
A lot of people online chimed in on this ad, which caused it to go viral and now be deleted by the clothing brand.
They said the campaign alludes to eugenics, a popular theory among white supremacists that suggests that the human race could be improved by breeding out people with ‘less desirable traits’.
One activist explained it
TikTok creator and activist Jeff Kissubi explained, “After watching the full thing, I was a bit confused because I thought, ‘OK it’s not about selling jeans, it was about Sydney Sweeney,’ and I took a step back and analyzed the symbols and language used.”
“She’s obviously conventionally attractive but it was what they considered great genes. Pale skin, blonde hair, blue eyes,” Kissubi added, per ABC.net.
It didn’t work with the current political climate
“When eugenic theory started in America, it was saying that everything that was not centred around whiteness would make your gene pool bad,” Kissubi added.
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“And it was the word play of the advertisement that subtly mirrored far-right Americana themes.”
The activist finds that it’s ‘valid criticism’
Kissubi went on, “In a country where identity and belonging are already being weaponized, especially now with the far-right MAGA narrative that is on the rise, I don’t think it was this overreaction.”
“I think that when people consume things that evoke a sudden reaction, that emotion is valid. When people feel erased and unsafe by what they see, it’s very important brands don’t exist in a vacuum.”
But this doesn’t mean they did it on purpose
Despite the popular negative interpretation of the ad, it doesn’t necessarily mean advertisers meant to send this message on purpose.
Lauren Rosewarne, from the University of Melbourne said, “There are focus groups and these ads are never just designed in a vacuum.”
They might have not been able to predict the reaction
“They are shown to groups of people to see what things jump out at them, but this is the danger of social media; you can never focus-group enough people to fully gauge what a social media response might look like,” Rosewarne added.
“Something that might not seem particularly obvious to focus groups will enter niche parts of social media.”
One person said to ‘fire the marketing team’
Whether this messaging is what was meant by the brand or not, a lot of people online aren’t forgiving of the campaign.
One person wrote in a comment under one of the campaign videos, “Terrible campaign. Fire the marketing team for being absolutely tone deaf.”
