JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Some weeks, there's a main character - someone or something the internet becomes obsessed with. NPR's Mia Venkat keeps tabs on those trends and is here to break them all down for us. Hey.
MIA VENKAT, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So Mia, tell me, who's this week's main character?
VENKAT: This week, it's the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad campaign.
SUMMERS: I've heard a few things about this.
VENKAT: That's right. So for listeners who haven't, Sweeney's an actress. You might know her from her roles in "Euphoria," "White Lotus," "Anyone But You." And last week, American Eagle launched a big new jeans campaign, and she's the face of it. It's clearly meant to be a sexy ad. In one video, she's lounging, buttoning up her jeans. In another, they zoom in on her chest. And she uses a sultry voice.
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SYDNEY SWEENEY: I'm not here to tell you to buy American Eagle jeans or that they make your butt look amazing.
SUMMERS: OK, I have questions, but I would like to know why so many people on the internet seem to be mad about this. I understand that part of it's about the language.
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SWEENEY: Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICEOVER ARTIST: Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.
VENKAT: Obviously, the play is on the word genes here, and people are saying that it promotes eugenics. Sweeney is a blonde, white woman with blue eyes, and she has this certain look. And people have really locked in on that, and they're asking, what is American Eagle valuing and promoting? And in response to those people, there's a lot of outrage from the right, saying that people are way overreacting and they're too woke these days. And - what? - it's a crime to be a hot woman now?
SUMMERS: (Laughter) Oh, boy.
VENKAT: Even the White House chimed in, saying on X that this is just cancel culture running amok. Sydney Sweeney hasn't commented, but today, American Eagle posted a statement on Instagram, saying the campaign, quote, "is and always was about the jeans."
SUMMERS: I got to say, looking at this ad, it kind of feels like a huge shift from the past few years, when brands seemed to be doing everything they could, really, just to diversify their ads.
VENKAT: Totally. And even with American Eagle, like, in the past decade, their underwear brand, called Aerie, did become known for casting diverse models and using unretouched photos. I talked to a professor about all this. Her name is Sarah Banet-Weiser. She's the dean at University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. And she told me that in her opinion, it's impossible not to read that ad voiceover as a reflection of the current moment.
SARAH BANET-WEISER: You're playing on the word gene, and you're saying this is about good genes. And you're literally going through - I'm white, I'm blonde, I have blue eyes, I have blue jeans, or whatever. It's pretty hard to, like, spin that as not about some kind of racist, eugenic argument, especially in the cultural moment that we are in right now.
VENKAT: She says all of this is also political, and it's notable that this ad is coming at a time when this administration is so focused on curbing immigration, on ending DEI policies. Trump himself has said so many times that he's going to end woke in the U.S. And on social media, we're seeing this rise of the trad wife - women embracing the role of a traditional housewife. And there's also a growing movement on the right to get women to have more babies. Banet-Weiser says, hey, advertisers are smart. They're not missing these cultural trends.
SUMMERS: Right, but if I get it correctly, the backlash about this ad isn't just about the racial element, right?
VENKAT: Yeah, that's right. A lot of folks are taking issue with the hypersexualized nature of the ads, especially since the company says the ad campaign is supposed to raise awareness about domestic violence, a cause Sweeney is passionate about. And 100% of the purchase price of the jeans actually is being donated to a crisis hotline. But it's not even just that. Sweeney has become kind of known for taking roles or partnerships where her sexiness is center of attention, and she gets a lot of flak for that. But Banet-Weiser says, hello, people have been doing this forever - sex sells.
BANET-WEISER: It sells. So when women choose that path, we can't, like, blame them necessarily for choosing that path. We should broaden our scope and say, why is this valued? Why are we continuing to put money into media campaigns that focus on the objectified female body?
SUMMERS: I mean, Mia, I just have to say that as I've been scrolling around online, it does seem like people are just putting a target on Sydney Sweeney. I mean...
VENKAT: Yeah.
SUMMERS: ...Didn't Doja Cat even make a video poking fun at her?
VENKAT: Totally. And that video has over 5 million views.
SUMMERS: Ooh.
VENKAT: Banet-Weiser points out that it's not just sex that sells. So does controversy. Rage sells. You get the clicks when you rage post about Sweeney, right? And that's why you could argue that this is a really successful ad. Everyone's talking about it. And by the way, you don't hear people calling out Jay Schottenstein, the CEO of American Eagle - a company whose stock went up right after this ad dropped, by the way. But you do hear them dunking on Sweeney.
SUMMERS: NPR's Mia Venkat, thank you.
VENKAT: Thank you, Juana.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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