Controversy in the United States
The “genes” of Sydney Sweeney: anatomy of a political conflagration
America is tearing around an advertising spot by American Eagle. Revealing controversy.
Passers -by walking in front of a campaign poster featuring Sydney Sweeney, exhibited in the window of the American Eagle Outfitters store on Friday August 1, 2025, in New York.
AP
This is the new Hollywood star: Sydney Sweeney Chains the successful series (“Euphoria”, “The White Lotus”), the films to a little less success (“Immaculate”, “Madame Web)”, the advertising campaigns for the biggest brands (Miu Miu, Armani Beauty). But now the actress is at the heart of a controversial burning.
Let’s get back. At the end of July, the American Eagle clothing brand released an advertising campaign, available in several videos. All stage the American star. In Europe, voices are annoyed by Sweeney’s hypersexualization. Close -ups and zoom in on its buttocks, languid looks … The realization is almost that of another century. And in the eyes of Europeans, the case could have stopped there. But not in the United States. On the other side of the Atlantic, the web, the media and the political world ignited.
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Good genes or good jeans?
The reason: in advertising spots, the narrator’s voice states that Sydney Sweeney has “great jeans», Either superb jeans. However, in English, the pronunciation of canvas pants is the same as that of the word “genes”. We can therefore hear “Sydney Sweeney has superb genes”.
Unfortunate confusion? Not really. In one of the clips, now deleted from social networks, Sweeney even said: “Jeans are transmitted from parents to children, which influences the color of hair, personality or even eyes. My jeans are blue. “
Result: Sweeney and the brand were quickly accused by progressive circles of making an ode to the genes of the actress – white and blonde – and of defending racist eugenics. And even to defend white supremacy. “The campaign comes at a time when the United States is experiencing a cultural evolution centered on whiteness,” writes the British daily «The Guardian»resolutely critical.
In the Republican camp, the reaction is quite different: the campaign seduces and the actress is brought to the clouds. For the American magazine «The New Yorker»it is clear that some conservatives see in Sydney Sweeney the embodiment of a return to traditional beauty standards, perceived as a response to “excess of progressive feminism”. For a radical right of the right, Sweeney would even be “a kind of Aryan princess”, comments the newspaper.
Donald Trump SIEN MOTULE
Even Donald Trump get involved. On the Truth Social Network, the American president declares that the ad in question is “the hottest (Editor’s note: Hot, in English) may he be ”.
New episode this weekend with the revelations of «The Guardian»who discovered that Sydney Sweeney had registered on the electoral lists of the Republican Party, a few months before Donald Trump’s victory to the November presidential elections. Questioned by journalists on Sunday in Pennsylvania, the president has fun: “If Sydney Sweeney is registered with the Republican Party, I think that his advertising is fantastic.” And to add: “You would be surprised at the number of people who are republican.”
He then mixes another American celebrity with this controversy: Taylor Swift, to whom he does not forgive to have supported Kamala Harris during the last campaign. “Look at the singer Woke Taylor Swift: Since I alerted the world to what she is, saying on Truth that I don’t support her (I hate her!), She was Huer at the Super Bowl and she is no longer attractive. The wind has clearly turned-to be WOKE is for the losers, to be a republican, that is what it takes, ”he wrote on Truth Social. These presidential positions have immediate economic repercussions: the action of American Eagle jumped 20% on the stock market.
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What does this case reveal?
What do the concerned say, namely Sweeney and American Eagle? The first has not for the time being pronounced. As for the brand, she defended her campaign by specifying that she was only aimed at promoting her jeans in denim. “It is and it has never been just for jeans. His jeans. Her story, ”she writes on Instagram.
This controversy illustrates many things: the polarization of the American public debate of course, the evolution of social networks, which have become the theaters of lightning cultural wars. But a question remains: how is it that a scandal breaks down without at any time the main interested party is expressed? Sydney Sweeney was able to build her career by playing with ambiguity: she assumes her hypersexualized image, her fine but luscious figure, while making fun of herself with subtlety. But in this debate, the actress was put aside: what counted was her body, not her.
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