Actress Sydney Sweeney has dominated headlines in recent weeks amid her partnership with American Eagle, which has emerged as the latest flashpoint in the culture war between liberals and conservatives.
Sweeney’s denim jeans ad has sparked allegations from the Left of promoting “white supremacy,” which has led many on the political Right, and even some Christians, to jump to her defense.
While some view Sweeney’s ad campaign as a refreshing development in light of major corporations’ past collaborations with trans-identified influencers, others see it as a mistake for Christians and conservatives to defend content that amounts to “objectification.”
Sweeney’s own political views have also come under the microscope as the ad campaign continues to make a splash in the marketplace and public discourse.
Here are five things to know about Sweeney’s denim jeans ad controversy.
1. Recent ad campaigns have had a much different tenor.
The Sweeney ad campaign and the reaction to it come as other major corporations have faced backlash for partnering with trans-identified influencers and promoting an agenda derided by critics as “woke.”
In 2023, the beer brand Bud Light named Dylan Mulvaney, a trans-identified male who has documented his gender transition on a TikTok series called “Days of Girlhood,” as a brand ambassador to “authentically connect with audiences.”
Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney, combined with the beer brand sending Mulvaney a customized beer can with his face on it to commemorate his 365th day of “girlhood,” led to intense backlash and a 21% drop in sales in the immediate aftermath of the campaign.
Also in 2023, the makeup brand Maybelline released an ad featuring beauty influencer Ryan Vita, a bearded man who uses the pronouns “she/he/they,” applying lipstick. Like Bud Light, Maybelline faced criticism from prominent conservatives over its embrace of LGBT ideology.
In 2022, a trans-identified influencer named Luke Pearson published an Instagram post celebrating the first LGBT pride month with “facial hair,” referring to a so-called gender transition from female to male. The purpose of the post was to encourage people to buy Harry’s Razors.
The picture and video accompanying the post showed a shirtless Pearson with double mastectomy scars left behind from the removal of her breasts. The caption revealed a hashtag identifying Pearson as a #HarrysPartner, prompting the razor company to experience backlash along the lines of what Bud Light and Maybelline faced.
2. Sweeney’s American Eagle ad receives criticism from the Left, praise from the Right.
Last month, the clothing company American Eagle Outfitters began releasing a series of new ads featuring Sweeney. One ad shows Sweeney lying down and suggestively buttoning her jeans as she remarks, “Genes are passed down from parent to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.”
“My jeans are blue,” she declares before the ad concludes with a narrator saying, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
The ad is based on the fact that the word “jeans” describes a common article of clothing, while the term “genes” refers to hereditary traits passed down from parent to child. Critics of the ad have suggested that Sweeney’s status as a blonde, blue-eyed woman and her use of the term “genes” have sinister implications.
An MSNBC op-ed titled “Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad shows an unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness” outlined some of the most common refrains used when criticizing the ad, specifically that it promotes “white supremacy” and “Nazi propaganda” by painting blue eyes and blonde hair as the ideal genetic makeup.
People who have both blonde hair and blue eyes are a global minority, however.
In a July 29 X post reacting to the op-ed, White House Spokesman Steven Cheung described the outrage over Sweeney's ad as “cancel culture run amok.” He added, “This warped, moronic, and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024.”
Vice President J.D. Vance was among several conservatives who weighed in on the matter. In an appearance on the “Ruthless” podcast earlier this month, Vance addressed the backlash against Sydney Sweeney. “My political advice to the Democrats is continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a nazi,” he joked.
Vance’s quip reflects the most common reaction to Sweeney’s ad on the political Right. He further described it as a “normal, all-American beautiful girl doing like a normal jeans ad.”
Democrats, he added, “have managed to so unhinge themselves over this thing” that it shows they’re struggling politically.
In response to the backlash, American Eagle released a statement defending the ad campaign: “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
3. Some conservatives say the Sweeney ad ‘objectifies’ women.
While much support for American Eagle’s Sweeney ad has come from those who identify as conservative, not everyone on the Right has embraced the sexualized ad campaign.
One such critic is “Relatable” podcast host and conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey, who expressed her concerns in a July 29 X post without naming Sweeney or American Eagle directly.
“Just because hotness is conservative-coded, doesn’t mean Christians should applaud sexual objectification,” she wrote.
The next day, pro-life activist Lila Rose wrote in an X post, “If we care about family values, we should oppose sexually objectifying ad campaigns.”
Shawn Carney, president and CEO of the pro-life advocacy group 40 Days for Life, offered a similar analysis in an op-ed published by The Washington Examiner.
“The objectification doesn’t suddenly become conservative or Christian just because it's done in a manner that offends woke sensibilities,” he wrote. “Christians and conservatives shouldn’t be promoting it as a win. Christian leaders saying the Sweeney ad is a cultural victory are implicitly stating that it’s perfectly acceptable and even laudable for women to be treated as sex objects.”
“We’ve been fighting woke and anti-Christian themes in marketing for so long that many are now perfectly comfortable selling out women’s dignity as long as we don’t have to look at an obese man with a full beard wearing a tutu,” he added.
“Women deserve better than to be objectified,” he concluded. “All women, including Sweeney.”
4. Sweeney is a registered Republican but has embraced Leftist views.
Buzzfeed reported earlier this month that Sweeney was registered with the Republican Party of Florida as of June 2024. Despite her nominal affiliation with the Republican Party, which is generally associated with conservative views, Sweeney has embraced progressive causes in the past.
On the issue of abortion, in a 2021 interview with Flaunt magazine, Sweeney declared, “I don’t like getting into political topics, but I do believe that a woman has the right to be able to decide over her body.”
In May 2020, just days after the death of George Floyd in police custody sparked national outrage and protests that led to billions of dollars in property damage and over 20 murders nartionwide, Sweeney published an X post proclaiming, “we need to do better” and “the hate in this world needs to end,” along with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. The post included a link to a webpage containing information for people seeking to advance the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement.
While many expressed opposition to the treatment of Floyd, the Black Lives Matter organization has faced criticism from Christians and conservatives for its hostility toward the nuclear family and its co-founder’s embrace of Marxism.
In a 2018 X post promoting the show “Everything Sucks!,” which she starred in, Sweeney shared a video clip highlighting “LGBT representation, then and now” as she made it clear she was “so proud of this show.”
The video clip mentioned how then-President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act banning same-sex marriage in 1996, and that “there was little to no LGBTQ+ representation on screen in the early ‘90s.”
The show centers around a lesbian who “grapples with embracing her sexuality without LGBTQ+ role models in pop culture.” A trailer promoting the series shows how comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian in 1997 and how that act changed the media landscape and led to a “huge increase in LGBTQ+ representation.” The trailer also includes footage of same-sex kissing and concludes with the statement, “We still have a long way to go,” while reflecting on “how far we’ve come.”
5. How does the public feel about AE’s Sweeney ad campaign?
In mid-July, before American Eagle launched its ad campaign featuring Sweeney, the company’s stock sold at $10.06 per share. Following uproar over Sweeney’s provocative ad, the price per share rose slightly to $13.28 on Aug. 4. American Eagle released a statement standing by its campaign, and President Donald Trump posted a statement on Truth Social praising the ad as the “HOTTEST” out there, insisting that the jeans were “flying off the shelves.”
On Wednesday, the stock price reached $13.52, the highest in the past month. It dipped to $12.64 on Thursday. The stock’s one-month low of $9.92 was recorded on July 21, before the launch of the Sweeney denim jeans campaign.
A poll of 1,635 U.S. adults conducted by The Economist/YouGov from Aug. 9-11 asked respondents whether they thought an image of the ad accompanied by text reading “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” was “clever,” “offensive” or “neither.” Thirty-nine percent of those surveyed said they viewed the ad as “clever,” while 12 percent characterized it as “offensive.” A plurality of respondents (40%) believed that the ad was neither clever nor offensive.
Data shared by Retail Brew found that foot traffic at American Eagle stores compared to this time last year had decreased following the launch of the ad campaign. The week of July 27 saw foot traffic at American Eagle stores decline by 3.9 percent compared to the same time in 2024, while foot traffic at American Eagle stores dropped by 8.96 percent during the week of Aug. 3 compared to the same time last year.
By contrast, American Eagle stores saw an increase in foot traffic compared to last year during the previous two weeks.
Conversely, AdWeek reported that traffic to American Eagle’s website has increased compared to this time last year. The highest spike occurred on July 28, which saw 60 percent more traffic to the retailer’s website than on the same date last year.
This article originally appeared on the ChristianPost.com.
