Less than a week after the launch of a commercial of clothing brand American Eagle, the video was taken offline again. The company came up with an advertising campaign for new jeans, starring Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney (27), a blonde woman with blue eyes that “Great JeansHas.Great Genes“Good genes, it’s just how you want to hear it. The campaign has been doing the minds on the internet for a week now: Progressive America accuses American Eagle of a barely disguised celebration of white superiority. In those accusations, their Trump -minded countrymen mainly see the umpteenth example of a blasted cancing culture on the left.
In the removed commercial, actress Sweeney closes the fly of her jeans while she wriggers sensually over the ground. “My physique is determined by my genes. Genes are passed on from parents to their children and often determine qualities such as personality, eye color and hair color,” her sultry voice-over sounds. The camera glides from Sweeneys navel through her nail blouse and blond hair to her clear blue eyes. “Mine Genes are blue. “
Another videoStill online: Sweeney sticks a poster of itself on a wall. “Sydney Sweeney has good Genes ”it says. In a later shot Genes crossed out and changed to jeans.
The slogan “goes and is always about the jeans,” has been written since Sunday declaration On the AE Instagram page, where it has become remarkably quiet. But many Americans just disagree. In the relationship between Sweeneys Blonde Haren and Blue Eyes and her good genes, they read a racist -intended accelerity of blond hair and blue eyes as a beauty ideal. Viewers call the advertisement a “eugenetic dog whistle” and “fascist Nazi propaganda.”
And then there is the way in which the actress is portrayed in the clip as a sex symbol. The video is clearly inspired by a controversial Calvin Klein advertising from 1980, in which the then 15-year-old actress Brooke Shields also tied her pants in a sensual way. “Do you know what is coming between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Years later, Shields said he was sorry about the commercial, because as a teenager she did not understand what she actually said and how she had unknowingly put herself down as a pleasure object.
‘Tired of this bullshit’
But that is exactly what conservative Americans want to see, according to their favorite TV shows. “The left just hates exciting people,” said a commentator on Newsmax channel. “She’s not overweight on the cover of Sports illustrated. She is not a male Prom Queen, “said the popular Fox presenter Greg Gutfeld.
Conservative America has been enjoying the indignation of their progressive countrymen for a week. For them, the criticism of the commercial is the pinnacle of blasted political correctness on the left, an argument with which the Trump camp has been able to conquer the hearts of large groups of Americans for years. “Disturbed on the left is after handsome women. That will probably do well in the polls,” said the Republican Senator Ted Cruz on X. “Cancel culture run wild,” wrote Steven Cheung, the press officer of the White House, on X. According to Cheung, “these distorted, idiotic and narrow liberal ideas” are the reason that the Americans chose Trump en masse last year. “They are tired of this bullshit.”
Remarkably enough, American Eagle was not the only brand that this week genetic predisposition used in commercials. “This tan? Genetics,” says actor Gavin Casalegno while he is narrowly at the edge of the pool on a summer drink from Dunkin. It does not miss the viewers. On the left: “What the hell is the hand in Eugenica?” And on the right: “White men’s summer. Nice crying, Lefties ”.
Exploding grenade
The advertising stunt of American Eagle is ideal for a cultural war, says Gijs van Oenen, associate professor of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He wrote a book about cultural wars, Cultural battles. “In the first instance, the message of the video is indirect, but as soon as you look longer, you get a certain direction hurled and you cannot avoid taking a position about what you see,” he says. “As a naive viewer you can interpret the commercial as a very sexualized way of selling jeans. What Else Is New In the advertising world? That new is the political context in which the advertising is presented, you cannot ignore that context. ”
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According to Oenen, the combination of the white woman Sweeney, also sexualized, with genetics, is in this time “a grenade that you know for sure that he will explode”. Typical of riots such as this is according to the philosopher that it divides people into two camps who no longer come closer together, because each argument makes the other camp even more angry and indignant. “That medicine was used here by the advertisers, a cynical move to be able to arouse attention. This can only be devised on intentionally. If the goal was, it worked out well.”
President Trump, troubled by persistent questions about his relationship with girls’ rapier Jeffrey Epstein, seized the chance to interfere with both hands. After leaking that Sweeney is registered as Republican in the state of Florida, he called her advertisement “Great!”.
The link between the commercial and earlier statements by Trump is quickly made. After all, it was he who spoke an almost completely white audience during an election rally in 2022 with the words “You have good genes here in Minnesota, you know that, right?” To convince his audience that Joe Biden would like to “flood with refugees” Trump underlined several times that many migrants have “bad genes” and that “it’s all about the genes.”
With the cooperation of Bas Blokker