This article first appeared at MassLive.com: American Eagle’s latest denim campaign, featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, has gotten backlash for having racist connotations.
The clothing company launched the campaign, called “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” on July 23, with the 27-year-old “Euphoria” star as the spokesperson.
The campaign was intended to be a celebration of “making customers look and feel good in AE Jeans,” an online press release states.
However, shortly after rolling out, fans on social media started accusing the campaign of celebrating whiteness and eugenics. Furthermore, the ads have been bashed for promoting beauty features — such as blonde hair and blue eyes — that are historically common among Aryan races.
Some pointed to the use of a “jeans/genes” pun used in the ads as being inappropriate, including one when Sweeney buttons her pants while lying on a couch and saying, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My genes are blue.”
“I’m sorry that American Eagle ad where they’ve got that blonde blue eyed woman talking about how good ‘jeans’ are passed down from your family and how hers are ‘blue’ when she looks at the camera is such a blatant dog whistle that it can hardly be considered a dog whistle anymore,” one X user wrote in response to the campaign ad.
Another X user wrote, “Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle promoting eugenics and pushing the aryan race Nazi propaganda was not in my 2025 bingo card.”
Some internet users have also accused AE of ripping off a 1980s Calvin Klein ad campaign starring supermodel Brooke Shields, SJ Denim reported. The ad showed a 14-year-old Shields rolling on the floor and trying to put on her jeans while discussing how “the secret of life lies behind the genetic code.”
However, AE’s campaign differs because it has been perceived as evoking a specific beauty standard, Cyndee Harrison, principal at marketing and crisis communications firm Synaptic, told SJ Denim.
“When nostalgia gets selective, it gets risky. Brands have every right to lean into heritage or iconography, but they have a responsibility to vet for subtext,” Harrison told the outlet.
“‘Great genes,’ paired with a very specific beauty standard and the legacy of the Brooke Shields campaign evokes exclusion more than empowerment,” she said. “Creative shouldn’t just pass legal review…it should pass cultural review. That means involving people with diverse perspectives at the table from concept to launch.”
However, not everyone was upset with the campaign. Many comments on a YouTube video of another ad were positive, with some comparing it to “the ads of the 90s when beautiful women sold clothes by just wearing them.”
“This used to be a normal ad to normal people left and right for decades,” one comment read.
Other comments were “maybe I’m washed but I don’t see anything wrong with the ad” and “this is all the controversy is over? Smh.”
AE has yet to publicly comment on the matter.
Read the full story here: https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/2025/07/american-eagle-great-jeans-ad-campaign-bashed-over-racial-undertones.html
