Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad is facing backlash—but did you know she's not even blonde?

Time of India

2 days ago

Source: Instagram/ American Eagle
When American Eagle launched its latest campaign starring
Sydney Sweeney
, they probably expected buzz. It did but not in the way that they would have expected.
The actress, known for her breakout role in Euphoria, appears in a denim-on-denim ensemble, essentially a sensual take on the Canadian tuxedo.
In one video ad, Sweeney playfully narrates: 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring.
' In another, the camera pans aggressively to her chest as she says: 'My body's composition is determined by my genes.'
The campaign's tagline?
'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.'
Within hours, the backlash began.
Critics across social media slammed the ads as tone-deaf, with some labeling the campaign 'master-race propaganda.'
The imagery, vintage Mustang, classic denim, all-American aesthetics, was paired with wordplay about 'genes,' a move that many saw as dangerously close to echoing white supremacist dog whistles.
Source: Instagram/ American Eagle
A number of users pointed out that phrases about 'genetics' and 'good genes' have a charged history in the U.S., especially given Donald Trump's 2023 remarks attributing immigrant criminality to 'bad genes.'
But here's what many people missed: Sydney Sweeney isn't even blonde.
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Undo
"I'm naturally brunette." — Sydney Sweeney
In an interview with YahooLife, Sweeney addressed the identity confusion directly:
'I'm naturally a brunette — almost all of my life I was a brunette. I highlighted my hair for Everything Sucks, but I really went blonde for Euphoria. There was this complex where no one really knew me as brunette Syd, and I didn't really book as much as I did when I was blonde — but I'm back to brunette because the blonde was killing my hair, and I needed to grow it out a little bit.
I kind of feel like I'm myself again.'
She even got more pointed in a separate interview: 'The biggest misconception about me is that I am a dumb blonde with big tits. I'm naturally brunette.'
Brains, as well as beauty
Since her Euphoria debut, Sweeney has been dubbed the modern-day 'It girl', complete with the traditional American beauty markers: blue eyes, conventionally pleasing figure, and, yes, dyed blonde hair. She's the kind of attractive that becomes shorthand for privilege.
And in the eyes of critics, that made her casting, and the ad's genetic wordplay, feel like more than a marketing gimmick.
But the backlash overlooks who Sweeney actually is. In high school, Sweeney wasn't just another pretty face. She was a top-tier student and an all-rounder: 'I was in every single sport possible,' she once told Parade. 'I was on the soccer team, the baseball team, the snow slalom ski team, I was wakeboarding.'
She was also a member of the robotics team and the mathematics club, and graduated as valedictorian from Brighton Hall School in Burbank, California.
To suggest Sweeney is the face of white supremacy because of a hair dye and a script she didn't write is reductive—not just of her, but of the broader cultural conversation.
It's true that media representation has long favored a narrow standard of beauty, and this ad doesn't exactly challenge that. But Sweeney herself is not the architect of that bias—nor, as she's pointed out, does she even fully match the stereotype she's accused of embodying.
Maybe before accusing an actress of upholding genetic superiority, it's worth asking a more genetic question: are we looking at her, or at a projection of our own discomfort?