American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney Are Accused of Pushing Eugenics in a New Ad for Jeans

Controversy and Sydney Sweeney keep making strange bedfellows. The Euphoria actor is once again under scrutiny, but this time it's due to her involvement in an American Eagle ad. This is not the first time Sydney has drawn the public's ire. While promoting her movie, Anyone But You, romance rumors were swirling around Sydney and her co-star, actor Glen Powell. They were both in relationships at the time.

Prior to that, Sydney caught some heat when she appeared to throw her mother a MAGA-themed birthday party in August 2022. Images of her family partying at a ranch, clad in Blue Lives Matter gear and familiar red hats, went viral, as fans accused the actor of supporting Trump. Sydney took to X to chastise folks for turning the party into an "absurd political statement." A few years later, she is now being accused of peddling eugenics via a jeans ad. Here's what we know.

According to a press release from American Eagle, Sydney partnered with the popular clothing line to help them launch their Fall ‘25 campaign. Jennifer Foyle, President and Executive Creative Director, said this represents how their community loves to mix and match denim, making it their own.

The advertisements for this campaign use the slogan "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans," with a play on the word jeans, as in genes. In one ad featuring Sydney, she is clad in head-to-toe denim while walking towards a wall with a picture of the actor wearing the same outfit. As she is flattening out the rippled ad, the word "genes" is crossed out, only to be replaced with the word "jeans." This is where the trouble supposedly begins, and it involves eugenics.

The ad immediately faced backlash as some accused it of pushing eugenics. According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, "Eugenics is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations." The application of eugenics varies on a global scale. In Nazi Germany, this concept was used to "cleanse" the German people of those they said were "unworthy of life." They were specifically referring to Jewish people.

In the early 20th century, Black people were targeted by eugenicists who viewed "blackness as a heritable trait that signaled a lack of vitality, innate promiscuity, and low achievement," per the National Institutes of Health. How are people connecting this to Sydney Sweeney and an American Eagle ad campaign for jeans?

Both the comments under the American Eagle ad on Instagram and references to it on X say this ad is promoting eugenics. It's possible they are reacting to a conventionally attractive white woman with blond hair and blue eyes saying she has good genes/jeans.

One comment on Instagram reads, "This is what happens when you have no ppl of color in a room. Particularly in a time like this. This ad campaign got so caught up in this 'clever' play on words and this stunt the ppl in the room missed what was so blatantly obvious to anyone not white."

"In the year of our Lord 2025 who approved this??!" another wrote.

But some don't see what the fuss is about. "I don’t get why people don’t like this? It’s cute and clever," another commenter wrote. What do you think?