American Eagle’s ‘good jeans’ ads with Sydney Sweeney spark a debate on race and beauty standards

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“It’s the same playbook: a very hot model saying provocative things shot in an interesting way,” he said.

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Billboards, Instagram and Snapchat

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Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers told industry news website Retail Brew last week that “Sydney is the biggest get in the history of American Eagle,” and the company planned to promote the partnership in a way that matched.

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The campaign features videos of Sweeney wearing slouchy jeans in various settings. Her image will appear on 3-D billboards in Times Square and elsewhere, on Snapchat speaking to users, and in an AI-enabled try-on feature.

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American Eagle also plans to launch a limited edition Sydney jean to raise awareness of domestic violence and to donate the sales proceeds to the nonprofit Crisis Text Line.

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In a news release about the ads, the company noted “Sweeney’s girl next door charm and main character energy — paired with her ability to not take herself too seriously — is the hallmark of this bold, playful campaign.”

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Jeans, genes and their many meanings

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In one video, Sweeney walks toward an American Eagle billboard of her and the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” She crosses out “genes” and replaces it with “jeans.”

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But what critics found the most troubling was a teaser video in which Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”

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The video appeared on American Eagle’s Facebook page and other social media channels but is not part of the official campaign.

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While remarking that someone has good genes is sometimes used as a compliment, the phrase also has sinister connotations. Eugenics gained popularity in early 20th century America, and Nazi Germany embraced it to carry out Adolf Hitler’s plan for an Aryan master race.

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Civil rights activists have noted signs of eugenics regaining a foothold through the far right’s promotion of the “great replacement theory,” a racist ideology that alleges a conspiracy to diminish the influence of white people.

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Shalini Shankar, a cultural and linguistic anthropologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said she had problems with American Eagle’s “genes” versus “jeans” because it exacerbates a limited concept of beauty.

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“American Eagle, I guess, wants to rebrand itself for a particular kind of white privileged American,” Shankar said. “And that is the kind of aspirational image they want to circulate for people who want to wear their denim.”

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A cultural shift in advertising

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Many critics compared the American Eagle ad to a misstep by Pepsi in 2017, when it released a TV ad that showed model Kendall Jenner offer a can of soda to a police officer while ostensibly stepping away from a photo shoot to join a crowd of protesters.

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Viewers mocked the spot for appearing to trivialize protests of police killings of Black people. Pepsi apologed and pulled the ad.

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The demonstrations that followed the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis pushed many U.S. companies to make their advertising better reflect consumers of all races.

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Some marketers say they’ve observed another shift since President Donald Trump returned to office and moved to abolish all federal DEI programs and policies.

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Jazmin Burrell, founder of brand consulting agency Lizzie Della Creative Strategies, said she’s noticed while shopping with her teenage daughter more ads and signs that prominently feature white models.