Sydney Sweeney x American Eagle 2025 ad



 As someone who has grown up shopping at American Eagle, I was highly disappointed when this ad came out, partnering with Sydney Sweeney in an effort to promote jeans. American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney faced backlash due to the "hidden" message in the advertisement. In this ad, the slogan is "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans," but as the ad continues, Sweeney discusses how traits are passed down through generations, such as hair and eye color. This changed the perspective from "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans" to "Sydney Sweeney has great genes". Sweeney is a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes. Using a play on words and inferring the slogan is "Sydney Sweeney has great genes" creates the interpretation that these genetic traits of blond hair, blue eyes, and white skin are superior to other genetic traits. This is extremely underrepresenting a large proportion of the population while indicating that minorities are inferior to white women on the basis of genetics. I am very disappointed that large companies still bring minorities down while giving white people more media power. Also, while receiving backlash, American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney both claim "it was always about the jeans," but in my opinion, if, as they said, it was just a jean commercial, genetics and physical traits should have never been mentioned. There is no correlation between jeans and eye or hair color. The problem of representing white people in ads as superior needs to end.

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Comments

  1. BaileeJanuary 23, 2026 at 12:37 PM

    I'm so glad you mentioned this! When this ad came out, I was extremely disturbed by their denial of what was so clear to be an attempt at claiming that all white, blonde, blue-eyed females were superior to anyone else. It rubbed me and many of my friends the wrong way especially as they tried to brush it off as being all about the "jeans" when they made a clear point of mentioning the genetic aspects of Sydney Sweeney.

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  2. Grace LawJanuary 23, 2026 at 4:11 PM

    When this ad came out I was immediately rubbed the wrong way.The way both parties handled the ad was uncomfortable to me. American Eagle had somehow made an ad about clothing and turned it into a popularity contest against the majority of the population. I remember everybody being excited hearing that Sydney Sweeny was partnering with AE for the ad and immediately being disappointed with what the outcome was. The ad definitely received a ton of backlash once it came out and I think it was deserved.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Em MaillouxJanuary 24, 2026 at 4:00 PM

    I absolutely loveee that you chose to talk about her! Not only did this not sit right with me but I also hated the we she branded herself with that one soap brand! Like Grace said, I seen a lot of negative backlash for both because it not only was it over sexualizing Sweeney and women who favor her looks, they were basically belittling women who didn't look like her.

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  4. jacinda orellanaJanuary 24, 2026 at 6:45 PM

    This is such a strong post and I completely see your point, I was just as bothered by this ad. The way American Eagle and Sweeney tried to downplay it as “just about the jeans” doesn’t and never made sense when the ad clearly tied beauty and value to whiteness. It really highlights how much work still needs to be done to make media and advertising genuinely inclusive.

    ReplyDelete
  5. N’diyahJanuary 25, 2026 at 10:09 AM

    The thing that shocks me most about the controversy is that when she had the opportunity and had been giving the platform to address the intentions of the ad, she brushed it off about it being about eugenics and didn’t even try to debunk the racist ideologies tied within the ad. The advertisement also came at a really politically tense time as well, so both parties are to blame for the participation and tone deafness of what went down.

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