Ever since Sydney Sweeney catapulted to fame playing “a gratuitously topless” teenager on HBO’s “Euphoria,” she has been upfront in interviews about using her sexuality and star power to get attention and to “make deals,” including with rich, powerful and controversial figures like Jeff Bezos, so that she can rake in as much money as possible, according to one analysis of her career.
The Daily Beast also said the 27-year-old actor and producer has faced ongoing suspicions that she’s secretly alt-right, which has fueled the social media outrage over her choice to appear in a blue jeans ad for American Eagle. The ad has been slammed for being a “racialized dog whistle” that promotes white supremacy and “Nazi propaganda” because its imagery and tagline praise the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Sweeney for her “great jeans” — words seen as a deliberate play on the phrase “great genes.”
While Sweeney has not responded to the criticism, marketing and PR experts have said that the controversy over the ad campaign was not the result of a mistake or a misreading of the cultural moment, as the Daily Mail reported. Indeed, the “racial overtones” of the ad were not “subtle” and the tagline was “deliberately” provocative, said Las Vegas-based publicist Alexandria Hurley.
“From a PR perspective, what we’re seeing from Sydney Sweeney isn’t a ‘misstep’ or ‘Pepsi moment. It’s a calculated brand evolution,” Hurley told the Daily Mail. “Sydney has flirted with controversy before … and rather than walk it back after criticism, she’s leaned further in. That’s not oversight. That’s strategy.”
For Sweeney, her “strategy” is to build a certain kind of celebrity, Hurley said. “This is a play for attention, not respectability. She’s embracing a kind of polarizing, headline-generating persona — and for now, it’s working. It has people talking, and brands who care more about reach than responsibility may still line up.”
Because of the ad, Sweeney has become a darling for some right-wing figures, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. He posted a sultry photo of a half-nude photo of Sweeney in tight-fitting jeans, posing for the American Eagle ad. He slammed the “crazy left” for coming out “against beautiful women.”
But Hurley and other PR and marketing experts said it’s a gamble for a rising star like Sweeney to try to be controversial, instead of being respected or liked.
“In agreeing to this campaign, she showed that for the right price, she was willing to ignore the values of her diverse, young fan base,” Alexandria Hammond, principal at BrandNEWS PR Consulting Firm, told the Daily Mail. “Bottom line: She sold out.”
The ad’s tagline announces that “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” But a viral clip, as part of the campaign, shows Sweeney standing in front of a poster that reads: “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” However the word “genes” is crossed out and replaced with “jeans.”
Another video shows Sweeney saying, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.” As the camera pans to her blue eyes, she adds: “My jeans are blue.”
For these ads, Sweeney and American Eagle have been accused of promoting eugenics, the manipulation of reproduction in the human population to increase heritable characteristics that are more desirable.
“OH MY GOD,” one user said on X. “Yeah that’s some (expletive) Aryan eugenics (expletive).” Another X user added: “The most Nazi part of the Sydney Sweeney ad for me was the use of the word offspring.”
The controversy didn’t immediately hurt American Eagle’s bottom line, according to the Daily Beast. The brand, which had previously slipped from the pop culture relevancy of its heyday, saw its stock jump by double digits after Sweeney’s campaign debuted. The casual clothing company also catapulted into the national conversation for the first time in decades—and the new profits reversed much of its year‑to‑date losses, the Daily Beast said.
Jonathon Narvey, CEO and Founder of Mind Meld PR Inc., told the Daily Mail that American Eagle was possibly “counting on precisely this kind of media buzz.” Over at NPR’s Morning Edition, advertising expert Allen Adamson, co-founder of brand marketing firm Metaforce, agreed that inciting a social media backlash was the point. Even with a message that many find offensive, this Sweeney-centric campaign shows a “company figuring out how to break through in a world where everyone is screaming and saying, ‘Look at me, look at me!’”
Adamson also said the campaign is indicative of a strategy among brands to move away from more inclusive forms of advertising, which have been popular in recent years. He said, “People remember disruption. People remember the edge. Pushing buttons.”
Pushing buttons also appears to be Sweeney’s PR strategy, at the same time that the “entire cultural ethos” is moving to the right, as MSNBC producer Hannah Holland wrote this week. After Sweeney told The Sun in 2023 that she takes deals because “they don’t pay actors like they used to,” she’s faced controversy in recent months.
In May, the Spokane, Washington, native went viral for partnering with the Dr. Squatch natural soap company to sell a product that was advertised as containing some of her dirty bathwater. The ads “predictably,” Holland wrote, showed an ostensibly nude Sweeney bathing in a tub.
Last month, Sweeney generated headlines by turning up in Venice to attend the glitzy, gauche wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. People initially couldn’t figure out why Sweeney was there, given that she, unlike Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian or Ivanka Trump, wasn’t known to be friends with either Bezos or Sanchez. But reports soon emerged that Sweeney was launching a lingering brand — with financial backing from Bezos, according to Holland.
The internet was outraged, condemning Sweeney for aligning herself with a man branded an American oligarch, all for a paycheck, Holland said. But the Daily Beast said that attending the wedding of a Trump-friendly billionaire like Bezos, followed by the “Great Genes” ad campaign, simply represent the latest headline-grabbing career moves for Sweeney.
“I cannot blame Sweeney for financially benefiting from a system that is going to exploit her either way,” Holland wrote. “Still, her willingness to participate in such an obviously damaging — and, depending on who you ask, even dangerous — advertising campaign as the latest American Eagle collection is disappointing.”