Sydney Sweeney, Donald Trump, And The “Great Jeans” Controversy
What began as a cheeky denim advertisement has spiralled into one of 2025’s most heated cultural controversies. Actress Sydney Sweeney, the 27-year-old breakout star of Euphoria and The White Lotus, now finds herself at the centre of a swirling debate over beauty standards, political signalling, and the fine line between marketing and messaging.
A seemingly innocuous American Eagle company campaign, launched July 23, titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.” In a short clip, Sweeney, clad in the brand’s latest denim, defines the scientific term “genes,” noting that they determine traits like hair colour and eye colour. The wordplay was unmistakable: genes/jeans, a double entendre that blended science, fashion, and sex appeal.
Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign is receiving criticism for a “jeans/genes” pun that some say echoes eugenics and white supremacy rhetoric.
Right-wing voices are celebrating the ad as a pushback against “wokeness.” pic.twitter.com/Q6LkOoAqbi
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 29, 2025
Almost immediately, users across TikTok, X, and Instagram dissected the ad’s subtext. Critics accused the campaign of promoting narrow, exclusionary beauty ideals, namely, white, thin, blonde, and even of echoing eugenicist language.
“Sydney Sweeney is a great actress,” one TikTok user noted. “But when you build a campaign around her physical attributes — and then throw in language like ‘great genes’ — you’re not just selling denim. You’re selling a very specific ideal of what it means to be desirable in America.”
One viral post labelled it “a textbook case of BEIGE marketing — Boring and Engineered to Identify with Gentrification and Eugenics.”
The #racebaiters on the left are so full of sh-t, they hate everything white and authentic. When Beyoncé wore the same jeans for the #AmericanEagel ad, they thought she was gorgeous! But they called Sweeny the embodiment of #whitesupremacy and #NAZI. SICK bastards! pic.twitter.com/UtvEyWTu0U
— Teejay (@TeejayMoana) July 31, 2025
Others zeroed in on the choice of Sweeney herself as the face of the campaign. The actress, often positioned (fairly or not) as a poster child for retro beauty ideals, has long attracted polarised attention, not least because of her family’s now-infamous 2022 birthday party, where guests were photographed wearing MAGA hats.
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At the time, Sweeney pleaded for understanding, stating on Instagram, “Please stop making assumptions. It was just an innocent celebration.”
But last week, things escalated further when The Guardian revealed that Sweeney officially registered as a Republican voter in Florida on June 14, 2024 — just months before Donald Trump clinched a return to the White House.
Trump himself weighed in on Sunday, telling CNN, “If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic!” He went on to suggest that many more people in Hollywood might secretly align with conservative values than are willing to admit. “You’d be surprised,” the President added with a grin.
REPORTER: “Actress Sydney Sweeney — it came out this weekend that she’s a registered Republican…”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “You’d be surprised at how many people are Republicans… I’m glad you told me that… I think her ad is fantastic!”
She’s got good genes!pic.twitter.com/83GgC4YPgK
— Suburban Black Man 🇺🇸 (@niceblackdude) August 4, 2025
That moment crystallised a cultural shift that had been brewing for weeks.
In a statement released Friday, American Eagle attempted to steer the conversation back to fashion, saying: “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story.”
We stand with Sydney who did absolutely nothing wrong. She was shamed into apologizing for being beautiful and white by a jealous nobody like @DojaCat. Disgusting. So ugly- inside and out. Mind your business!
Here’s the ONLY response any of you haters deserve: pic.twitter.com/z01C1KCvmx
— 💋🩵 Tallulah (@MtnMama406) July 31, 2025
Yet the debate hasn’t slowed. As comparisons to past ad debacles, notably Bud Light’s 2023 Dylan Mulvaney campaign, circulate online, brands are growing increasingly cautious.
This caution is only amplified by the Trump administration’s recent executive messaging to corporations regarding Pride Month. According to the reports, the White House has advised companies not to alter their logos or packaging in rainbow hues during LGBTQIA+ observances.
The move signals a retreat from corporate allyship campaigns once seen as industry standard, raising questions about how brands will navigate inclusivity in the current political climate.
So far, American Eagle has held firm. Unlike Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, which distanced itself from its Mulvaney partnership after a backlash-induced sales slump, American Eagle has enjoyed an uptick in stock value since launching the Sweeney campaign.
