Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Great Jeans’ Campaign: Flirting with Eugenics in Denim

The problem isn’t that Sweeney is attractive. It’s what her beauty is being used to evoke and endorse.

Fez – There are ads that sell a product, and then there are ads that reveal something deeper about the society buying it.

American Eagle’s recent denim campaign starring actress Sydney Sweeney falls into the second category.

On the surface, it’s just another celebrity-brand pairing with a cheeky pun: “great jeans” riffing off “great genes.” But dig a little, and the implications are far more sinister.

Let’s start with the basics. Sweeney, a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, conventionally beautiful actress, appears in a glossy campaign for American Eagle’s latest fall line.

She smiles, plays with a puppy, revs a Ford Mustang. “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring… My jeans are blue,” she says.

It’s designed to be playful, nostalgic, Americana chic. But for many viewers, the campaign landed with an audible thud.

Critics aren’t being hysterical

And the backlash wasn’t about aesthetics, it was about history, politics, and coded messaging.

The problem isn’t that Sweeney is attractive. It’s what her beauty is being used to evoke and endorse.

In the American political and cultural context of 2025, where DEI programs are being dismantled, where far-right ideologies are mainstreaming, and where race and identity are fiercely weaponized, this kind of campaign doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

It lands in a country already awash with tension over whose identities are prioritized, commodified, or erased.

To understand why this ad hit a nerve, you have to understand the history it evokes. The phrase “great genes” isn’t new.

It’s been used for decades to compliment looks, athleticism, intelligence. But it also has roots in something much darker: eugenics.

A pseudo-science embraced by white supremacists in the 20th century and later institutionalized by Nazi Germany, eugenics centers on the belief that certain traits, often white, Western, able-bodied, heterosexual ones, are genetically superior.

The entire framework was built on exclusion, sterilization, and systemic violence.

So when a major American brand launches a national ad campaign focused on a white woman’s “great genes,” featuring her embodying the aesthetics of white Americana, it doesn’t matter how cheeky the pun was meant to be.

The optics are loaded. The symbolism is real. And the people calling it out aren’t being hysterical; they’re being historically literate.

What makes the defense of the campaign even more troubling is how swiftly critics were dismissed as “woke leftists” or “liberal crybabies.”

In fact, the USA Today opinion piece that rushed to Sweeney’s rescue didn’t just defend the campaign, it used it as a cultural cudgel to lash out at diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts more broadly.

The columnist mocked the idea that anyone could see a racial subtext, then pivoted to praising the rollback of DEI policies and expressing sympathy for white Americans who “feel ostracized.”

This is a classic bait-and-switch. First, you inject a racially-coded message into a mainstream campaign.

Then, when people point it out, you accuse them of overreacting, and use that reaction as proof that diversity efforts have gone too far.

It’s a well-rehearsed rhetorical move, and it serves one purpose: to normalize exclusion under the guise of free expression.

This was no PR blunder

Let’s also be clear: this campaign wasn’t tone-deaf, it was targeted. It wasn’t a PR blunder, it was a strategy.

American Eagle isn’t naïve. Marketing departments don’t spend millions launching national campaigns without vetting every word, every image, every frame.

This was not an oversight. It was a deliberate embrace of a cultural moment where white nostalgia sells, and where backlash can be spun into even more attention.

And then there’s Sydney Sweeney herself. No one is blaming her for being white, blonde, or famous. But this is not her first brush with controversy.

When photos of her family in MAGA hats emerged during a birthday celebration, she brushed off the criticism as an “absurd political statement.”

Now, in a post-Trump America where brands are subtly courting conservative audiences and dialing back on inclusive messaging, her casting in this campaign reads less like coincidence and more like brand alignment.

Even the donation of proceeds to a mental health crisis line, while noble, feels like a calculated cushion.

It’s the soft padding around a hard message: look how pretty white America still is, and how good it can make you feel.

But advertising doesn’t just sell denim. It sells ideals. It shapes cultural memory. And when you center whiteness, beauty, and Americana as the aspirational default, when you link them to “great genes,” you’re not just selling jeans. You’re selling a hierarchy.

In a truly inclusive society, beauty and desirability wouldn’t be reduced to Eurocentric features and genetic puns.

And in a more honest media landscape, the people raising these concerns would be engaged, not ridiculed.

So yes, Sydney Sweeney probably does have “great jeans.” But it’s the campaign’s other message, about who belongs in the spotlight and who doesn’t, that’s far more revealing. And far more dangerous.