If you haven't heard of the American Eagle brand, you certainly have now after the fuss over their recent ad campaign
The American Eagle Jeans ads starring actress Sydney Sweeney have caused no end of fuss since they first aired a few weeks ago, with US president Donald Trump joining the chorus. Dr Dee Duffy from TU Dublin and co-host of the Desert Island Dress podcast joined the Morning Ireland show on RTÉ Radio 1 to discuss the controversy. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full below).
On the one hand, says Duffy, there's nothing new to see here. "If you watch the ad without the controversy around it, it's an innocuous ad for jeans, nothing new to see here. Typical denim, probably atypical of an ad from 1990s or 2000s, naughties, those Calvin Klein ads, a blonde haired, blue eyed celebrity endorser of a very well-known brand in the States, but less known here, targeted towards the Gen Z target market."
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So far so what so why the fuss? It's the play on words, explains Duffy, and a sense that there was an intentional controversy underpinning the seemingly innocuous advert. "There's been different versions of the ad, but the one that was particularly provoking shows Sweeney in front of a banner, which reads 'Sydney Sweeney has great genes', where she paints over the word genes and replaces it with J-E-A-N-S. So there's no ambiguity here.
"What's happening is American Eagle are tapping into a societal tension happening at the moment in America where there is cultural polarisation and the cultural wars at play. They might be poking the fire in a sense and playing into white nationalism replacement theories, which is quite provocative, but it does so in such a subtle way that they can say 'nothing to see here, this is a basic ad. we're just selling jeans."
American Eagle jeans ad starring Sydney Sweeney
Duffy says we have seen this sort of thing before. "It can be said that they are being apolitical on the surface, but they are subtly repackaging conservative values in more palatable ways if you want to really read into the advert again. But they can pull back and say 'nothing to see here'. The question is did they know what they were doing? Were they tapping into the zeitgeist or is it simply a Gen Z denim jeans advert?"
For American Eagle, the controversy is all about sales. Duffy says the Sweeney ads have seen the brand's market value increase by over $200 million as a result. "If you go on to American Eagle website right now, all the jeans in most sizes are sold out. So will this sustain? This is word of mouth, this is free advertising and they've still got to put their hands up and say 'oh, we didn't mean to offend anybody, we'll take that down'. But that doesn't matter now, it's out there now in the conversation."
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And what about the jeans themselves? "Not that anybody's talking about the jeans, but they are a very casual style jean. They are a low rise, baggy, wide fit. They're playing into that girl-next-door, everyday kind of look, which isn't sexualized for sure. And nobody's talking about the fact that 100% of the proceeds from these jeans are being donated to Crisis Text Line, which is a nonprofit for mental health support. That's not in the conversation at all."
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
