Sydney Sweeney’s Denim Debacle: American Eagle Fires Back at Eugenics Claims
Jaden Patel here, your designated eye-roller for today. Who would have thought that an ad for denim could spark accusations of eugenics? American Eagle’s recent campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney praising her “good jeans” has triggered a level of outrage usually reserved for international crises or karaoke gone wrong.
On July 23, the retailer rolled out videos and photos of the Anyone But You star sporting their latest denim line alongside her dog, Sully Bear. One clip even had Sweeney quipping, “eyes up here,” as she leaned into the camera, a wink so obvious it practically shouted “look at my jeans.” The marketing team apparently thought swapping “genes” for “jeans” was clever. Social media disagreed. Some users pointed out on American Eagle’s Instagram that the campaign seemed aimed squarely at men, complaining that women deserved “something DIFFERENT.”
Then came the wild twist: because Sweeney is white, blonde, and blue-eyed, critics accused American Eagle of endorsing eugenics and even Nazi propaganda. “This was not the move AE,” one Instagram comment read. With buzzwords like “eugenics” thrown around, the denim ad suddenly felt like the 1980s Calvin Klein scandal all over again—only this time nobody was underaged. The parallels to Brooke Shields’s infamous campaign were hard to ignore, especially after Shields called her own teen photoshoot “naive” in a 2021 Vogue interview.
American Eagle refused to stay silent. In an exclusive statement to TMZ on July 30, a brand representative insisted that “social media is just not reflective of real life.” They cited independent polling showing 71 percent of respondents found the commercial appealing. The rep stressed that proceeds would support domestic violence prevention, a worthy cause, and that “anything beyond that is noise that is not registering with the average person.”
Sweeney herself has a history of eyebrow-raising promotions. Earlier this year, she pitched her own Dr. Squash soap featuring her bathwater. When E! News asked about it, she cryptically said, “I think it’s more fun to see everyone else talk about it.”
In short, a simple jeans ad transformed into a tangled debate over marketing ethics, race optics, and whether denim can really carry the weight of high-minded social commentary. American Eagle chalks it up to digital hysteria, while vocal critics remain convinced they uncovered corporate propaganda. Neither side looks ready to back down.
Stay tuned for the next marketing misstep: will we soon see a cereal box accused of microaggressions? Only time—and social media outrage—will tell.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and TMZ, Vogue, E! News
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
