Sydney Sweeney is not Hitler. Do we have to do this over a jeans ad? | Opinion
Until she speaks up about the absurd controversy swirling around her, it is hard to figure whether Sydney Sweeney is dreading it or enjoying it. It can’t be fun to have your ad for jeans smeared as a Nazi dog whistle, but on the other hand, millions now know more about her than we would have otherwise.
I was already aware of Sweeney as an “it” girl of the early 2020s, but beyond her appearance in the first season of “White Lotus” and her praiseworthy job hosting “Saturday Night Live” last year, I had not consumed much of her work. While it contains a sleeper-hit 2023 rom-com (“Anything But You”), her résumé also includes some serious and successful turns at acting and, more recently, producing.
While she cannot be dismissed as a shallow sex symbol, she has no intention of ignoring the role her appearance has played in her success. This is more than evident in her American Eagle jeans ad, which has caused some sectors of society to spin off the planet entirely.
The 15-second clip that has occupied our lives for days contains her use of the homophones “jeans” and “genes.” A frame-by-frame recap:
We see a pair of jeans worn by a reclining woman as the camera pans up to reveal she is buttoning them. As she begins speaking, the context suggests “genes;” she says they are “passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.” The camera pans up, across her denim jacket to her face, as she turns toward the camera and says, in the context of what she is wearing: “My jeans are blue.” As are her eyes, which is the clever wink to the audience.
Get it?
As if there is any doubt as to the word play involved, big white letters fill the screen with an accompanying voice-over: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
Well, yes, she does, whichever spelling you use. The double entendre is designed to draw attention to two things: the quality of the clothing and the attractiveness of the model. That second one is apparently a problem, at least for unhinged trolls. They find the genetics imagery instantly reminiscent of Hitler-era eugenics, and they are rattled to their core by a campaign that avoids the apparently necessary boxes that must be checked off in modern advertising.
She is white. She is not overweight. She is clearly a woman and acutely aware of it. Three strikes, you’re Hitler.
Understand that the silly leap toward Third Reich stigma is wholly because American Eagle did not get the memo of what leftist cranks will and won’t allow in ads these days. It is wonderful that people of all colors are now found in commercials. It is also good when people are called out for fat-shaming.
But have these pendulums swung too far, from praiseworthy acceptance to obnoxious bullying? As recently as 2013, a Cheerios commercial featuring a mixed marriage drew a wave of online surprise. Now such representations are so ubiquitous that a comedian recently observed: “I saw a commercial last night, and I had to pause it to make sure — the married couple was the same race!”
It’s as if the culture rushes to counterbalance past neglect but overshoots by miles. Take the issue of weight. Remember when models were too skinny and calls arose for portrayals that looked like “real women?” That was good. But the recent fad has extended that standard from “real women” to “really large women.”
And there’s no harm in that, either. Beauty does not require a certain weight. But as it will do, the modern scolding community began to defame anyone who would dare suggest that obese people should lose weight. Lizzo, a profoundly talented singer who was also profoundly overweight, has begun a weight-loss journey that has attracted attacks from those who feel she has abandoned the movement to confer “body positivity” at the expense of wise health advice.
Into this crazy mix, insert an ad campaign featuring a famously beautiful actress who happens to be white, and who happens to meet what has forever been a valued standard for an attractive body type. In a world that says ads can feature all races and that beauty can be found in all sizes, this would be a non-issue, just one of countless ad campaigns that swirl around us constantly.
But in these twisted times, any drop in the advertising ocean that does not conform to the obligatory trends of the moment must be dragged and mischaracterized. If there is a 1930s Germany analogy to be found in this story, it is not in the innocent content of the ad, but in the excesses of the woke Gestapo that seeks to silence any messaging that gets under its famously thin skin.
Mark Davis hosts a morning radio show in Dallas-Fort Worth on 660-AM and at 660amtheanswer.com. Follow him on X: @markdavis.
