Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad faces criticism for 'Nazi fascist' propaganda

Time of India

2 days ago

Image credits: Instagram/americaneagle
Actress
Sydney Sweeney
has quickly become the perfect American sweetheart with her beautiful looks, front-page smile and strong opinions. The 27-year-old actress fits the classic stereotype of an 'American' with her blue eyes, blonde hair and bold persona.
With her much-applauded acting skills and innovatively curated PR activities like selling soaps made of her actual bathwater, the actress has capitalised on her increasing stardom and thus, so have brands. Recently, American Eagle, a clothing and accessories brand that has been functioning since 1977, released an ad with the actress as the lead.
The ad begins with her successfully repairing her car with the camera panning to her back, where she slides her hands over her jeans and moves on to sit in the car and leave. The caption for the ad is one single sentence: "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans"
Additionally, the brand also shared a video of the actress on Instagram where she approaches a billboard of the brand and paints over it, while striking out the word 'genes' and writing 'jeans'.
In its entirety, the statement by the brand makes for many meanings and not only that of good jeans, but also good "American" genes. While the campaign may have worked to give a 4% jump to the company's shares as of Thursday, it has surely brought its social media goodwill down by a notch.
Many took to social media to address the message of the ad and classify it as 'Nazi Fascist' propaganda. Why so? Find out below!
Netizens react to American Eagle's new ad
Image credits: X
Well, the proclamation of Sweeney's classic "white" appearance and genes as good, caused much uproar online for being not only a 'Nazi fascist' propaganda but also 'racist'.
As per a report from Salon, the phrase "Great Genes" has been used historically to celebrate whiteness, thinness and attractiveness. Even for people who are unaware of its origin, the brand's message is quite clear and offensive.
"Should we be surprised that a brand name is literally American Eagle is making fascist propaganda like this? Probably not, but its still really shocking like a blonde haired blue eyed white woman is talking about her good genes, like that is Nazi propaganda," said a woman in a TikTok video that is going viral on the internet.
Many took to X to share their views, writing, "The Sydney Sweeney American Eagle jeans ad is NAZI propaganda, and you're a fascist if you don't agree," and "They could've easily gotten a beautiful black women to do this ad but they got a yt women to do it instead..."
Some even called for the brand to take back the ads, "american eagle needs to delete those sydney sweeney ads. they are genuinely scary."
Neither Sweeney nor the brand have made any comments about the backlash on the campaign yet.