Syndey Sweeney's ad isn't selling ‘great jeans', but the body in them — and that's the problem

Indian Express

2 days ago

'Hey, eyes up here,' says Sydney Sweeney as the camera pans down from her face, focusing on her breasts for a moment too long. It's an advertisement for American Eagle jeans, but you wouldn't know until the punchline arrives: 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.'
Arguably, the ad could be for anything. Brands have long sexualised women to sell everything from cars and deodorants to body lotions and even mango juice. Remember Katrina Kaif caressing a mango for 45 seconds, inhaling and biting into it, as a breathy voice whispers promises of 'pure mango pleasure'?
Since the early days of commercial advertising, women have been slotted into tired, recurring tropes. They are either objectified, used as props next to a male lead, or portrayed as the ever-smiling, perfect housewife or mother.
For years, the 'Lux girl' was promoted as the ideal beauty standard. Then came the 'Santoor mom,' where women were told they could raise a child, yet must look like they hadn't aged a day. Let's not even get into hair removal ads, where female confidence is portrayed as being innately tied to body hair — or rather, the absence of it.
Which brings us to American Eagle's latest campaign that seems to have divided the American polity.
Some argue that Sweeney's ad smacks of racism, while others have dismissed the criticism as a product of 'wokeness'.
At the centre of the backlash is a teaser video where Sweeney says: 'My body's composition is determined by my genes.' She continues, 'Jeans are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.'
Another video features a poster that reads, 'Sydney Sweeney has great genes,' with the word 'genes' crossed out and replaced by 'jeans'.
Critics argue that casting a blue-eyed, blonde, conventionally attractive white woman while referencing 'great genes' inadvertently echoes eugenics — the discredited pseudo-scientific belief in racial and genetic superiority.
Coined in the 1880s by British scientist Francis Galton, 'eugenics' linked heredity to intelligence, morality, and social status. It gained currency in the West post-World War I, but its most chilling manifestation came under Nazi Germany, where Adolf Hitler co-opted eugenics to justify the genocide of European Jews. The Aryan ideal – tall, blonde, blue-eyed, athletic – of the Nazis became a propaganda tool used to promote a 'master race,' a theory now universally debunked.
Not everyone shared the criticism. Some brushed aside the backlash, calling it an overreaction, and arguing that the genius of the ad was all about a 'simple pun'. Fox News host Katrina Campins said the ad was simply a reminder that 'hot women sell products.' And that, precisely, is the problem.
Throughout the ad, the camera pans across Sweeney's body as she smiles, stares into the lens, and, in one clip, adjusts her jeans while saying, 'I bet you wanna try these jeans.' The messaging appears more targeted at the male gaze than at women shopping for denim. The subtext seems to be: buy these jeans, and maybe you will look like her. Or better still, be desired like her.
In pandering to this idea of desirability, the ad joins a long tradition of marketing that reduces women to their bodies — packaging female sexuality to sell a fantasy.
Social media, meanwhile, has turned Sweeney into a shorthand for an outdated ideal of womanhood. One user wrote, 'What makes Sydney Sweeney so attractive is that she invites and welcomes you to look at her sexually.' Another said, 'She reminds men of the way women acted before fourth-wave feminism. She smiles. She's an actual woman.'
Advertising doesn't operate in a vacuum. It shapes, reflects, and often reinforces societal standards of desirability, particularly for women. And it's a loop. Brands reflect culture, and culture reflects advertising. Few campaigns ever attempt to break that cycle, save for the token International Women's Day post.
A 2024 report by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority found that 45 per cent of respondents were concerned about 'idealised body images of women' in ads, and 44 per cent were worried about the 'objectification of women and girls'. Meanwhile, Creative X, a brand content firm, found that although brands are spending more to portray women in non-stereotypical roles, they still overwhelmingly appear in family settings rather than professional ones. And women with darker skin tones make up less than 30 per cent of female representation in ads.
Of course, there have been exceptions. One thinks of the Nirma ad that replaced women cheerfully scrubbing clothes with four women helping push an ambulance out of the mud while the men looked on. The Hemas, Rekhas, Jayas and Sushmas shifted from domesticity to strength. Then, there's Mohey's 'Kanyamaan' campaign, which critiqued the idea of daughters as paraaya dhan (another's property).
These examples stand out precisely because they are rare.
And let's be clear: the problem isn't Sweeney's sex appeal. A 27-year-old woman celebrating her sexuality can be liberating. The issue is when that sexuality is carefully curated, commodified, and used to reinforce the same narrow beauty standards that advertising has peddled and profited from for decades. When a campaign leans on innuendo and wordplay, all the while a conventionally attractive woman flirts with the language of genetics, it isn't just trying to be clever. It's reiterating, subtly, but persistently, who gets to be seen as desirable. And when that happens, the ad isn't selling 'great jeans', but the body that wears them.
Sonal Gupta is a senior sub-editor on the news desk. She writes feature stories and explainers on a wide range of topics from art and culture to international affairs. She also curates the Morning Expresso, a daily briefing of top stories of the day, which won gold in the 'best newsletter' category at the WAN-IFRA South Asian Digital Media Awards 2023. She also edits our newly-launched pop culture section, Fresh Take.
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