An ad campaign from American Eagle featuring actress Sydney Sweeney has sparked backlash over what users on social media have deemed racist undertones — or overtones, some say.
Much of the criticism has swirled around the campaign’s title: “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” a play on “good genes.”
“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,” she says in one video. “My jeans are blue.”
As part of the campaign, American Eagle is launching a pair of jeans produced in collaboration with Sweeney to raise awareness for domestic violence. The proceeds from each pair’s sale, the company says, will go towards a volunteer crisis intervention text line.
Many online commentators, however, honed in on how the blond-haired, blue-eyed actress was repping a prominent American brand in such fashion at a time when the Trump administration has attacked diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and moved to aggressively deport immigrants.
Sayantani DasGupta, a lecturer at Columbia University, said in a TikTok video that the campaign was “really imbued with eugenic messaging” and compared its tagline to remarks President Trump made in 2020 about how Minnesotans had “good genes.”
“It is both a testament to this political moment, and it’s contributing to and reinforcing this kind of anti-immigrant, anti-people of color, pro-eugenic political moment,” she said of the campaign, adding that she planned to teach it in at least one of her courses in Columbia’s narrative medicine program in the fall.
DasGupta’s video has garnered more than three million views.
In another video, the reference to genes is overt: Sweeney, clad in denim, is shown painting over a mural of herself with the words “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.”
Despite the backlash, American Eagle stocks have jumped, up 20 percent over the past five days. Many observers have deemed it a meme stock.
The campaign also bears similarities to a 1980s campaign by actress Brooke Shields for Calvin Klein, which also relied on plays between genes and jeans.
American Eagle did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Sweeney herself has not yet publicly addressed the controversy.
