Actress Sydney Sweeney’s silhouette is displayed behind the words “Great Genes.” The word “genes” is scribbled out and replaced with the homophone “jeans,” representing the controversial double entendre used throughout Sweeney’s marketing campaign with American Eagle. (Graphic Illustration by Charlotte Burnap)

In a blank white room so silent you can hear the static noise, slowly zipping up her American Eagle jeans, lies actress Sydney Sweeney. As the camera ever-so-slowly pans up her body, Sweeney, clad in denim, seductively utters the now-infamous statement: 

“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality — even eye color,” Sweeney’s face finally comes into frame, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders as she stares straight at the camera through half-lidded, crystal-blue eyes. “My jeans are blue.”

The double entendres, staticky silence and sensual voice are all a callback to the controversial Calvin Klein jean ads of the ‘80s, starring a 15-year-old Brooke Shields. This campaign gained notoriety due to Shields’ age and the suggestive tagline featured in an ad: “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Even Sweeney’s aforementioned play on words can be found in one of the vintage ads.

The “genes” video was one of many created for American Eagle’s ad campaign starring Sweeney. The slogan? “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” Some advertisements even replaced the word “jeans” with “genes,” before scribbling the homophone out and replacing it with the correct word.

After the campaign debuted July 23, viewers were quick to accuse American Eagle of not only promoting their denim, but also eugenics and white supremacy. It’s hard not to draw this conclusion: A white, slender, blue-eyed blonde tells the camera that genes determine hair color, personality, and eye color, and then follows up this statement with “my jeans are blue.” Blue as in blue jeans? Sure. But also blue as in blue eyes. Blue as in being blue-blooded. Blue as in a white supremacist dog whistle. 

It’s hard not to make this connection. In fact, I would argue that it’s so hard not to make this connection — that there’s no way one of the 917 employees in American Eagle’s Marketing Department didn’t. Claire MacDuff, Head of Marketing at law company Elevate, said she believes the controversy existing outside the company is likely present internally, with some members of the company presumably being unaware of the campaign.

“It is not enough to go ‘Hey, we want a marketing campaign that’s going to go viral.’ Why do you want to go viral? What do you want to go viral for? Should you be playing with those boundaries at all,” MacDuff said over an interview via Teams. “It is very, very possible that this was an almost honest mistake — I say almost because I still think they were trying to push a line — but I think that if that is the case, you have to also be non-deflective and admit to your wrongs.”

In response to the controversy, American Eagle issued a statement via an Instagram post where the company clarified that the campaign “is and was always about the jeans.” The company ended the barely five-sentence statement with the line, “Great jeans look good on everyone,” deflecting the accusations. But do five short sentences really make up for the racist impact of this campaign?

MacDuff said, in her opinion, the campaign’s aforementioned controversy was far from unintentional. She believes that the writers’ room was driven by a “racy angle,” in order to get people talking. MacDuff said she doesn’t know just how much of the campaign was intentionally antagonizing rather than the result of a writers’ room lacking diversity.

Prior to the release of Sweeney’s campaign, American Eagle was experiencing a sharp decline, with stock down 20% from two years ago. Now, after the controversy made it all the way up to the steps of the White House, stock has “soared” nearly 40%, writes the New York Post.

Is this success here to stay? Only time will tell. Analysts from Bank of America foresee the Sweeney campaign cannot “fully inflect the business over the long run,” with the bank cutting its target for the stock price to $10 from $11. This could lead to a near 20% fall in shares, which could cost the company approximately $650 million.

However, American Eagle seems to think that Sweeney is here to stay, with Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers already murmuring about a part two.

“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ (the ad campaign) is not going anywhere,” Brommers said. “Sydney will be part of our team as we get into the back half of the year, and we’ll be introducing new elements of the campaign as we continue forward.”

As talks of a continued campaign fall conveniently in line with risks of stock dropping, I cannot emphasize enough how vital it is that we stray from providing the company with the attention it desires. Does the saying of “All press is good press” still ring true? MacDuff warns it does not, which can be seen in American Eagle’s 9% decline in foot traffic, which, prior to the campaign, was increasing.

“Did it get people talking? Absolutely,” MacDuff said. “Our goal here is to learn, as marketers, from other people’s mistakes or successes in other places. What are metrics for success? Are you getting people to talk? Why?”

One question now remains: Will Sweeney’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed charm continue to skyrocket American Eagle’s stock in the months to come? Or will an ad campaign riddled with eugenic messaging prove detrimental? If you’re anything like me, you’re hoping for the latter, and the best way for us to achieve this goal is to simply stop giving American Eagle the controversy they desire. Yes, the very existence of this article belies this, but if it can stop the creation of one tweet, one TikTok video or one Instagram post, then that’s a step away from exactly what American Eagle craves: attention.