Controversy sparked in July from the well-known actress of “Euphoria” and “Anyone about You”, Sydney Sweeney, regarding an advertisement for American Eagle. The blonde, blue-eyed actress posed in fitting jean pants and stated, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
The advertisement played with the words of jean and gene to creatively sell the product to the wide market of the Sydney Sweeney fanbase. They wanted to spread awareness of domestic violence with the butterfly symbol on one of the jeans in part of the collaboration. The sales revenue was going to be donated to the Crisis Text Line, and it sold out within a week.
Eugenics is so deeply ingrained in America’s history, institutions, history, and media. The American Eagle ad with Sydney Sweeney has disgusted thousands of individuals in the media with its blatant white supremacist ideals. The oversexualization of Sweeney’s body, blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin aligns with the “good genes” of eugenics. The advertisement is tone deaf in implementing white superiority and Nazi propaganda in a domestic violence awareness campaign. It is more than jeans.
The advertisement created an outrage on social media for the prominent promotion of eugenics. Eugenics was first coined by Francis Galton in 1883; however, it became a global scientific practice. It is known as a racist pseudoscience that highlights the “good genes” and rooting out “the bad genes” in society. Good genes are expressed to have the physical Nordic features of blue eyes, pale skin, and light hair. These good physical traits are seen as pure, while the “bad genes” are people of color, the LGBTQ+, individuals who have disabilities, and mental illnesses. Madison Grant, an American eugenicist, explained in his 1916 book “The Passing of the Great Race” that women are the ones who maintain the purity of genes.
Eugenics is associated with Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime for the death of six million Jewish people from 1933 to 1945. However, Hitler’s antisemitic writing was inspired by United States rhetoric, laws, and eugenics research.
The Eugenics movement started in the United States through marriage laws in Connecticut in 1896. It was illegal for individuals who had epilepsy and disabilities to be married. Eugenics was studied by Ivy League researchers and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. In California, there were 20,000 forced sterilizations in mental institutions from 1909 to 1979. They wanted to avoid any offspring from patients with mental illnesses and who were also minorities.
Throughout the 1900s, American white women aided the propaganda of eugenics through fairs and contests. Mary de Gamo created a contest in 1908 for “better babies” in the Louisiana State Fair, where young kids would be evaluated for their purity and healthy well-being. While Mary T. Watts and Florence B. Sherbon made Fitter Family Contests. Families sent their medical records and traits to be analyzed by medical doctors. These doctors would decide if they have the best eugenic health through these physical and mental records.
The current political climate is significantly heightened by the white supremacist ideals, ICE raids, and the current president of the United States, Donald Trump. Trump has been pushing actions to the continuous displacement of innocent families through deportations and to erase American history that includes minorities. The advertisement of Sydney Sweeney highlighted part of Trump’s goals of “Making America Great Again” for purity in race.
Despite the efforts of the Trump administration, minorities’ voices will not be silent. Many people and institutions are educating individuals about the history of the persistence of Black Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans, and immigrants during these times. There are cultural programs and protests for the injustices that are occurring in the U.S. The individuals who have the privilege to turn a blind eye are silent, like Sydney Sweeney. The erasure of people of color, disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals will continue to persist through the propaganda of eugenics and white supremacy.
Sweeney has recently commented in a GQ interview that the ad doesn’t affect her and remained unbothered. She will only comment if she really has an issue with it. Eugenics couldn’t affect a white woman in power socially and politically. Sydney Sweeney remained ignorant by not recognizing the deep history of eugenics and the problems with the advertisement. The response is tone deaf and highlights the normalization of white superiority in marketing.
However, the question remains: Will the trend of eugenics and white superiority continue to persist in marketing ads, movies, and shows? Or was it an overreaction in the media? Was it really just “jeans” or “genes?”
