Culture And Her Criticism: Sydney Sweeney Edition

Has Sydney Sweeney really done it this time? News Section Editor Siya Pujari talks dodgy branding deals, eugenics and the dangerous reality consumerism is heading towards.

If you are tired of reading about Sydney Sweeney’s jeans, look away! Now that you’ve been warned, I do find the discourse around the notorious American Eagle ad and how Sweeney has been torn apart by the culture interesting—specifically, how it is always a woman who becomes the topic of relentless criticism, regulated only by the court of public opinion. That is not to say I endorse her contributions or reactions to the ad’s reception at all, but it is something I find fascinating—the role of the condemned and crucified woman in cultural dialogue. But I do want to dissect the weirdly specific nuances that this controversy managed to hit, the pop cultural zeitgeist that led to the mass exodus of pre-existing Sydney Sweeney fans, and the subsequent trickling-in of her right-wing supporters.

But maybe we are jumping the gun… For those who missed it, the fashion brand American Eagle (AE) and actress Sydney Sweeney collaborated on a series of advertisements promoting AE’s denim line. The campaign contained oddly-communicated messaging, inciting a tornado of backlash towards both the brand and Sweeney, but especially the actress. The key dialogue in the ad is as follows:

SWEENEY: Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE VIA VOICEOVER: Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.

We get off to a pretty rough start: Sweeney chooses an odd enunciation to convey these words, emphasised by her consistently flat affect. She seductively addresses the camera as it trails across her body while she slurs her message. In my opinion, initial responses should consider the dialogue as poorly-delivered slop hidden within subtext, but ironically it is the subtext itself that initiated the extensive discourse and hate-train directed at Sweeney.

Immediately after the ad’s distribution, people interpreted it as a conservative rhetoric spewing genetic supremacy and the concept of eugenics. Infamously, eugenics is the ideology touted by many conservatives who maintain the notion of a reproductive and genetic pinnacle in society, wherein a certain prioritisation of “desirable” physical characteristics would improve the overall phenotypic quality of the society. While initially argued to be a science, this ideal has been repeatedly disproven and rejected, with its damaging consequences most infamously reflected through the Nazi regime that wielded the ideology against the Jewish population. Within their propaganda posters across Germany, not dissimilar to how the American Eagle ad was distributed amongst stores, women were centralised within Nazi propaganda artwork with emphasis on their emotional capacity and sexual image. They portrayed the ‘natural’ beauty of some young white blonde girls to enforce a eugenics-based doctrine. Basically, they were used as symbols of genetic purity.

This historical context is relevant to recognise that, similarly to the past, there is a visible infiltration of right-wing thinking into consumerist spaces, such as advertisements that create the perfect breeding ground for people’s frustrations to hibernate. The general feelings of pessimism towards the capitalist landscape, combined with the reality of the politicians ruining any cultural capacity through their censorious actions à la Trump, don’t create a particularly optimistic viewing audience for AE’s ad who are likely to give Sweeney grace for the role she played.  

We can see the ad as the culmination of individual consumerist desire and idealist imagery, exhibited through the immersion of Sweeney, a famously gorgeous celebrity, with American Eagle, a desired fashion brand. AE itself is an innately patriotic brand through its namesake with the ‘Eagle’ being America’s national animal and the ‘American’ positioning itself as the “ideal” brand that all Americans should aspire to consume. The notion of the existence of a single ideal is reinforced in Sweeney’s ad with her body and features framed to be the perfect genetic combination and the most centralised vision of American beauty. 

The regression into conservative visuals away from pop feminism with trad-wife core trending on social media can suck the life out of any consumer. It reflects the bland reality where choice feminism is still floating around, supporting the assumption that any woman’s choice is a good choice on the basis that the woman chose it. It is a reflection of the capitalist grip we have no choice but to succumb to, and which Sweeney obviously doesn’t separate herself from. This criticism towards Sweeney could also be considered as cultural exhaustion of how problematic products are brushed under the rug, simply because a woman headlined its publicity. 

We could say this is simply not a productive discourse, but this controversy was a useful tool to dissect the way that Sydney Sweeney has marketed herself in the space of the public. This, in combination with her selling her ‘bathwater’ in soap, paints a pretty clear picture. Regardless of whether her actual bathwater was in the limited-edition soap titled ‘Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss’ is technically irrelevant—she is still selling an idea that feeds into her perceived image that perpetuates the purchaser’s consumerist pursuit, benefitting only the celebrity. With regards to Sweeney, it seems to be relatively easy for her to disengage and present herself as a construction of beauty that sells to public desires if she can gain more attention from any resulting controversy. 

Trump and his infuriating fawning over Sweeney does not help the alt-right pipeline criticisms she faces with this ad. He wrote on the Truth Social platform: “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there. It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are ‘flying off the shelves.’ Go get ‘em Sydney!” [1] Gross. 

What brought even more scrutiny was GQ’s interview with Sweeney where she elected not to directly address the discourse when the interviewer offered her a fairly easy way to reject the white supremacist allegations that had wrapped around Sweeney’s brand, but instead refrained from addressing anything. The conversation is an awkward read, to say the least: 

KATHERINE STOEFFEL (interviewer): I mean, Trump tweeted about the jeans ad... that just seems like a very crazy moment...

SWEENEY: It was surreal.

STOEFFEL: The risk is that there's a chance that somebody will get some idea about what you think about certain issues... Do you worry about that?

SWEENEY: No.

STOEFFEL: The criticisms were that maybe white people shouldn't joke about genetic superiority... I just wanted to allow you to talk about that specifically.

SWEENEY: I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear [2]. 

Sweeney's rejection of the interviewer’s suggestion to explain her perspective on the way the discourse evolved shows her lack of desire to speak up. This could be explained away if the hate against her perpetuated from something stupidly irrelevant or small, but it is hard to brush past the President of the United States’ internet drivel in support of the conservative undertones the ad that you starred in contained. 

Ultimately, do I think that the criticism towards Sweeney went way too far in terms of the ridiculous sexual harassment she endured as a result of this ad? Well, yes but… it is hard not to become frustrated with Sweeney, the subject of an ad that has such conspicuous ties to conservative ideology, intentional or not, when we all have become unwilling participants in the whirling political games our leaders are engaged in, where living amongst social friction is the norm. 

[1] Trump, Donald J. [@realDonaldTrump] (2025, August 5). Truth Details [Post] Truth Social. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114970952739677687

[2] GQ. (2025, November 5). Sydney Sweeney Speaks on That American Eagle Ad & Her Body Transformation [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TwhvC_iPCc