White House slams outrage over Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ads, calls it 'big reason' Americans voted for Trump

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The new campaign, titled "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans," has sparked viral backlash and accusations of racism.
The great debate over Sydney Sweeney's recent denim disaster has a new participant: the White House.
White House communications director Steven Cheung took to social media on Tuesday to defend Sweeney's new campaign for the clothing brand American Eagle — which has sparked backlash and accusations of racism — and slam liberals' reaction to its ads.
"Cancel culture run amok," Cheung wrote of the negative response to the campaign, which included claims that the brand is glorifying a racial ideal during a fraught political time.
But Cheung took things a step farther, adding, "This warped, moronic, and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024. They're tired of this bulls---."
The campaign in question, titled "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans," is based on a seemingly harmless play on words for the 27-year-old star's "great genes." However, critics of the campaign have accused American Eagle of espousing eugenics ideology — which promotes white genetic superiority and which historically enabled the forced sterilization of marginalized groups — and baiting contrarians on the opposite end of the spectrum to blame it all on "wokeism."
While the brand released multiple ads in support of the campaign, its most criticized ad features the actress speaking of her "great genes" and not of the actual denim itself.
In the ad, Sweeney is shown reclining on a couch as she fastens her pants and murmurs, "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My genes are blue." Then a male narrator concludes, "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans."
Conservative TV personality Megyn Kelly also weighed in on the debate, calling out "lunatics on the Left" and deeming their reaction "absurd."
"She's being called a white supremacist by people who don't like her latest ad," Kelly said on The Megyn Kelly Show. "She's advertising jeans, and yet the lunatics on the Left think she's advertising white supremacy. This is obviously a reference to her body and not to her skin color, but the lunatic Left is going to do what the lunatic Left is going to do."
Kelly, who happens to be blonde and blue-eyed, added, "They're upset because it's about who gets to be the face of America's Best Genes. They think it's no accident that they've chosen a white, thin woman because you're, I guess, not allowed to celebrate those things in any way, shape, or form. But they're completely ignoring the reference to her body, which is the thing she's famous for. It's just absurd."
Ironically, Kelly's argument speaks to many of the claims from those who have blasted the campaign. Critics flocked to TikTok to share their thoughts on the brand's messaging, calling American Eagle out for having a white, blonde, blue-eyed woman talking about "good genes."
User jessbritvich noted in her video that users "can't keep pretending" that marketing is created in a vacuum and the campaign "doesn't exist without the culture it's selling to." She asserted that American Eagle's campaign seems particularly pointed during a "rise of fascism in America."
As an example, the TikToker used an ad in which Sweeney, wearing a denim jumpsuit, says, "My body's composition is determined by my genes (jeans)."
"It's more than a cheeky wordplay, it's a dog whistle," jessbritvich said, noting that the ad's implications fall in line with similar comments made by Donald Trump to a nearly all-white crowd in Bemidji, Minn., in 2020. "In this ad... it's saying that Sydney has a great body and therefore great genes, a product of genetic superiority. Specifically saying these white, thin, traditionally feminine bodies are not just aspirational but symbols of morality, tradition, purity."
She added, "It's echoing the language of white purity politics, and purity of blond hair and blue eyes. This language has cultural context... No, I really don't think this is an accident."
Sweeney and American Eagle have not yet addressed reactions to the campaign.
Representatives for the White House, Cheung, American Eagle, and Sweeney did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for comment.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly