Emmy-nominated actress Sydney Sweeney has shown a talent for courting and then brushing off controversy. She’s a serious Hollywood player but she’s also an old-fashioned “bombshell” who doesn’t seem to mind too much when attention is focused on her body. As a result, she’s been celebrated by the right wing for her anti-woke attitudes as well as her low-cut tops.
So she’s a perfect fit for a jeans ad, following in the controversial footsteps of young women like Brooke Shields and Kate Moss who famously let nothing come between them and their their Calvin Kleins. But woke clearly isn’t as dead as we think it is in the US, because there’s been a big backlash about the “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” line, which is being seen as Nazi-style eugenics propaganda rather than a (rather obvious) play on words.
In the other camp, the death of woke advertising is being celebrated. Sweeney was famously unapologetic about a picture of her family in MAGA hats, recently said that she could sell her bathwater because her fans “wouldn’t stop asking for it,” and happily writhed around in bondage gear for the Rolling Stones’ Angry video.
The American Eagle ad, strangely, is tied up with raising awareness of domestic violence, and the purchase price is being donated to a charity offering confidential mental health services. The jeans also feature a butterfly motif on the back pocket, which is meant to represent domestic violence awareness.
Sweeney is a very successful actress who kick-started her career on season one of White Lotus and has since co-starred with A-lister Glen Powell in hit movie Anyone but you, as well as single-handedly carrying the powerful movie Reality about the arrest of an Air Force linguist.
American Eagle did well to get her on board in the first place, and with all the extra publicity, shares in the company – and presumably sales of the jeans – are already going up.
