Jeans or Genes? In the Wake of the Blonde Bombshell’s Booby Trap

A TikTok dance going viral…

A meme with dark humour…

Someone promoting their latest song…

Then BAM! A new ad!

I almost scroll past it, but something catches my attention… what is going on here?

Is this just another ad using an attractive young woman for their marketing, or is there something sinister hiding behind a pretty face?

These were my immediate thoughts when I came across Sydney Sweeney’s new American Eagle campaign that was released on the 24^th of July. It features the Euphoria star seductively lying on a couch wearing the new clothes, as she declares “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue”

I’m sorry… what?

Surely they cannot be serious? Did no one think that using a conventionally attractive woman with blonde hair and blue eyes to talk about “jeans” but with a very clear double entendre to the word “genes”, was going to have a positive reaction?

I fear that there is a calculated, subliminal message laced throughout this campaign that is grounded in eugenics and racist ideologies.

Eugenics , as defined by the National Human Genome Research Institute is:

“the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations.”

This was an idea that has been used throughout history to justify atrocious actions, but particularly within the 1940s during the Nazi regime and Holocaust, where millions died and even more suffered because of this ideology, and Hitler’s obsession with creating a race of blonde hair and blue-eyed people.

It is this terrifying political undertone that people picked up on that ignited much outrage online, as many questioned the intentions of the campaign, its key catch phrase “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”, and why American Eagle hasn’t come out with a formal apology.

Since its release, it has also been revealed that Sweeney is a registered Republican, and that President Trump has publicly supported the campaign and its seemingly elitist messages. This political influence is particularly concerning, given that within the first six months in office, President Trump cut support and funding for disability services, while ramping up funding for ICE, his deportation service.

I think this sudden shift away from supporting people of difference signals a greater cultural shift in the America psyche to exclude thousands of people, much like what occurred in Nazi Germany almost 100 years ago.

I think this campaign is sending out a flare to signal to the rest of the world the potential change coming in the not-so-distant future…