The week is about wrapped up, and it appears the Sydney Sweeney ad furor might be petering out. For those who missed it, Mike Bebernes at Yahoo Entertainment has a recap. "What started out as a buzzy commercial starring one of Hollywood's most in-demand actresses has quickly spiraled into a sprawling debate over sex, race, politics and American culture as a whole," he writes. Even the White House got involved.
- The basics: Sweeney, 27, did a series of ads pitching American Eagle jeans under the punny tagline, "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans." See one here.
- The backlash: Online commenters took issue, as summed up in USA Today: "Critics have said the jeans campaign amounts to a dog whistle for eugenics and a glorification of whiteness." Ad Week notes that one ad in particular seemed to set these critics off. "My body's composition is determined by my genes," says Sweeney, before adding: "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue."
- White House: White House communications director Steven Cheung called the above reaction "cancel culture run amok" in a tweet. "This warped, moronic, and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024. They're tired of this bull---."
Two op-eds might sum up the debate:
- 'Fair' criticism: At MSNBC, Hannah Holland calls criticism of the ad campaign "fair." The "advertisement, the choice of Sweeney as the sole face in it and the internet's reaction reflect an unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness, conservatism and capitalist exploitation," writes Holland. "Sweeney is both a symptom and a participant."
- Nope: In the New York Times, linguist John McWhorter runs through the controversy and comes to the following conclusion: "Language changes; culture changes; labels are reassigned. And a blond, blue-eyed actress talking about jeans—or even genes—is just a pun, not a secret salute to white supremacy."
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