«Genes or jeans?»: campaign with Sydney Sweeney accused of promoting eugenics
Here’s why
A new advertising campaign by American Eagle, featuring «Euphoria» star Sydney Sweeney, has landed in hot water. The controversy stems from an ill-conceived pun based on the similarity between the English words «jeans» and «genes».
In one of the videos, Sweeney says: «Genes are passed down from parents to children, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue».
In another clip, the text on screen reads «Sydney Sweeney has great genes», which then shifts to the word «jeans».
Social media users criticized the wordplay, seeing it as a reference to eugenics – the pseudoscientific belief in «improving» the human race, which was especially popular in Nazi Germany.
Further outrage was sparked by the choice of actress: some commenters felt that the campaign focuses on a stereotypically attractive look – a blonde woman with blue eyes – evoking associations with historical ideals of «proper» appearance that were used for ideological purposes in the past.
Opinions, however, were divided. Some users pointed out that a similar approach was used in the well-known Calvin Klein ad with Brooke Shields in the 1980s and had no negative connotation. But critics argue that in today’s political and social climate – amid rising right-wing sentiment and Donald Trump’s election campaign – such imagery and messaging are, at the very least, controversial.
Photo: Instagram @americaneagle
