Remnants of Eugenics in Blue Jeans
By: Kalpana Pandey
The clothing retail company ‘American Eagle’ released an advertisement on July 23, 2025, featuring the young actress Sydney Sweeney. This company, which was operating at a loss, attempted to attract its young female customer base by featuring Sweeney, who has fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.
In American eagle’s advertising campaign, the catch line “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” was used. This campaign played on the homophones Genes and “jeans” (denim pants).
In it, Sydney says, “Genes are passed from parents to offspring, determining characteristics like hair color, personality, and even eye color.” In the advertisement, as the camera moves from her denim jeans and jacket to her face and eyes, she says, “My Genes (jeans) are blue.” (Meaning, that’s why her eyes are blue). The advertisement employed wordplay with “good jeans,” playing on jeans (clothing) and genes (genetic traits).
Gradually, this advertisement began appearing everywhere on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. It caught the attention of netizens. Criticism started pouring in. Genes are passed from parents to the next generation, but what was the need to mention this in a jeans advertisement?
Why was it said that “my jeans are blue” by showing blue eyes instead of focusing the camera on the jeans clothing? Such questions led this controversy towards accusations of eugenics. Further, large-scale allegations of Nazism and racist advertising began to emerge.
Within a few days, the advertisement was withdrawn. However, in those few days, American Eagle’s share prices (NYSE: AEO) rose by 24% after the campaign was announced. This was their largest increase since the year 2000. The discussion grew so much that the success of this advertisement was compared to Brooke Shields’ commercials for Calvin Klein in the 1980s. In stores, Sydney Sweeney’s jeans sold out rapidly.
However, the discussion on this advertisement did not stop there. The actress Sydney Sweeney in this advertisement avoided giving any reaction on it. While the company was trying to quell the controversy, in support of Sydney Sweeney, the American President tweeted, and Vice President JD Vance called Sweeney “all-American beauty,” and President Donald Trump wrote on Monday (August 4), “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, this is her hottest ad.” He publicly declared this. In favor of this advertisement, the ruling Republican Party-supporting Fox News stood up.
After the media investigated, this information turned out to be true that she is a registered Republican voter. Sydney Sweeney herself registered for the Republican Party on June 14, 2024, as per Florida’s voter registration records, which was confirmed from her Florida voter registration record.
This was verified and confirmed by reputable media outlets like The Guardian, BuzzFeed, Newsweek, and many others, who published reports based on it. In 2022, photos from Sydney Sweeney’s mother’s birthday party, where some guests were wearing hats in the MAGA (Make America Great Again) style, also came into much discussion. After this revelation, Donald Trump publicly praised Sweeney’s advertisement for this reason.
Donald Trump’s politics is more subtle than direct hate speech. While expressing the insecurities of white people, cultural fears, and identity crises in political language, he attracts them as voters by suggesting that white people are under threat as they become a minority. Trump’s language is often such that it implies the dominance and cultural position of white people is in danger. Trump has repeatedly referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as anarchic or thuggish, while considering violent protesters like those at Charlottesville’s ‘Unite the Right’ as within the bounds of law.
The Republican Party is recognized as the party of white people afflicted by the sentiment that “the social status of white people is declining.” Therefore, Sydney being a Republican voter, doing a white supremacist advertisement, and when criticized for it, the President, Vice President, and the President’s office of the world’s most powerful country like America defending her—this is not unrelated.
White House spokesperson Steven Cheung mocked the ongoing criticism of this advertisement as “cancel culture run amok.” meaning cancel culture has crossed limits. Right-wing people criticize it as “woke” extremism means cancel culture is running in such an extreme form that even the slightest mistake leads to large-scale negative reactions. According to the White House spokesperson, people have overinterpreted it and run an unnecessary boycott campaign against Sydney Sweeney and the jeans brand. Therefore, this matter was called “cancel culture run amok”—
On the other hand, this advertisement is being criticized for watering the remnants of eugenics. ‘American Eagle’ putting Sydney Sweeney’s statement that her jeans are ‘blue’ (eye color) in the category of ‘good jeans’ advertisement can be seen. “Good jeans” is a phrase commonly used in today’s time to appreciate someone’s physical beauty or attractiveness.
However, behind this seemingly simple sentence lies a complex, horrifying reference connected to a dark chapter in history. That are eugenics—the concept of selectively controlling human reproduction to enhance “desirable” traits, meaning selective breeding. It emerged in the 19th century and became popular in the 20th century. It was carried out under the name of ‘improvement of the human race,’ but it remained linked to racism, discrimination, and coercive policies. Eugenics ideas played a significant role in increasing racial hatred.
This discriminatory thought provided scientific basis to already existing social prejudices, strengthening them at institutional and social levels. Eugenics was once a concept that came forward at the level of science and politics. However, due to its close associations with racial superiority, forced sterilization, and Nazism, today this concept is completely rejected. Nevertheless, reflections of what are considered “proper,” “pure,” and “attractive” traits from its underlying ideology still appear in subtle forms in the world of media and advertisements.
To understand why Donald Trump is taking the side of this advertisement, his policies should be examined. Since January, the President has imposed a national emergency on the shared border with Mexico, denied entry to asylum seekers, authorized nationwide immigration raids, announced aggressive policies for self-deportation, and increased pressure on third-world countries regarding deportation. He did not stop there. Steps to cancel diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have created concern. The administration has gone beyond its mainly white, conservative, MAGA voter base. President Trump told his supporters at rallies that they have “good genes.” Last October, he said that illegal immigrants who commit murder have “bad genes.” On the campaign trail, the President claimed that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” language that directly echoes Adolf Hitler’s 1925 autobiography, Mein Kampf.
Such language has been approved by two-thirds of Republican voters nationwide, according to a University of Massachusetts poll in October 2024. In recent years, conservative critics from TV host Tucker Carlson to billionaire CEO Elon Musk have also leaned into the controversial Great Replacement Theory, created by French writer Renaud Camus in 2010.
According to the theory, white Americans are at risk of becoming a minority and losing their jobs to non-white immigrants. The Republican Party claimed in the 2024 election campaign that the Democratic Party is importing immigrants to win elections. Currently, American politics is reaching new lows every day.
The subtle shadow of eugenics persists. In media and advertising, qualities like “beautiful, pure, attractive” are still shown as “good genes.” Although eugenics has been rejected, the discriminatory seeds in its underlying ideology are still alive in society. “Good genes” is a casually spoken word in today’s time, but behind it lies the horrifying legacy of eugenics.
This movement, popularized in the name of science, gave legitimacy to racism, ableism, misogyny, and social injustice. Millions underwent forced sterilization, minorities faced inhuman atrocities, and it provided ideological basis for the Nazi genocide. Even today, when concepts like “good genes” are used in politics or media, it is necessary to remember this background. Science should be used for human equality, not for discrimination and racial superiority. The history of eugenics reminds us of this very danger. The blue jeans advertisement is precisely a remnant of eugenics.
(The author lives in Mumbai. She can be reached at kalpanapandey281083@gmail.com)
