My take on the Sydney Sweeney scandal? We need to Make Advertising Great Again
When American Eagle’s latest ad landed like a bad curry, I strained to see what the usual suspects were so hysterical about. Especially when you look at the iconic ads of the past.
She’s a 27-year-old dirty-blonde bombshell with a languid, blue-eyed gaze. Reclining on one elbow, one leg casually raised, the other extended out in front of her. She stares down the barrel of the camera. There’s just a hint of boredom in her look. Or is it the look of someone who didn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000?
Either way, her image embodies the all-American dream girl, on steroids. Actor Sydney Sweeney is the face and derriere of US denim brand American Eagle, and this campaign has flushed out more stupid from underneath various rocks than any normal person would believe possible.
The image I’ve described is just one from the campaign. There’s a healthy dose of cleavage (boobage for days, weeks even) but let me tell you my first reaction on seeing it. This old Gen Xer fancied herself a chance; I wonder if those jeans would suit me? Living proof sex doesn’t sell just for blokes. Or living proof that I’m a sucker.
In a world where up is down, black is white and night is day, this frankly straightforward, run-of-the-mill example of advertising – a gorgeous woman fronts a campaign to sell clothes – has caused a fuss. The combination of a beautiful, fresh-faced, young white woman, a dose of feminine wiles and a double entendre on the use of the word genes sent some people over the edge.
It’s dog whistling for eugenics. It’s Nazism. Racism. Nazi adjacent. I wish I was kidding. A-grade comedy, D-grade thinking.
When all of this landed like a bad curry, I strained to see what the usual suspects were so hysterical about. What am I missing, I wondered (apart from bitterness, jealousy and a penchant for taking offence)? All I see is a clever, mildly opportunistic advertising campaign that harks back to a simpler time when women were allowed to be attractive and use their genetic good fortune as they saw fit. But no, these are the days in which if there’s nothing to be offended by the usual suspects create it; you can bet on it.
Take this from the notoriously woke New Yorker magazine: “The American Eagle campaign, its presentation of Americana as a zombie slop of mustangs, denim, and good genes, is lowest-common-denominator stuff.” I’m sorry, what now?
As with most things, it’s not the responses in isolation that reveal what lies beneath. It’s about context, what we’ve lost over time and the heaving, obvious, consistent double standards around women, the “right and wrong” kinds of women, and of course men in public life.
Let’s pick it apart. The same week this campaign came out, Beyonce launched her denim collaboration with iconic brand Levi’s. It’s same-same but different. She’s gorgeous and significantly more famous. It’s oozing sex appeal, a tonne of bedazzling (the denim, not the woman) and the whole campaign hinges on her. Based on the campaign images, Beyonce is also apparently fine with whipping out the cleavage. The only difference is that nobody seems to be bothered. No outrage. No offence. I’m not saying there should be, just pointing out that there isn’t any.
Which brings me to a Facebook ad posted by shapeware brand Skims. Let’s just say it leaves zero to the imagination. Less than zero. Some call it a G-string, some might call it an eye patch. Who can tell? But I promise you one thing, a woman had better have perfect genetics to wear it. No outrage here, though. Not a whisper.
Neither was there when in 2021 luxury brand Burberry featured a shirtless, ripped and heaving Adam Driver to promote its fragrance Hero. The actor is seen, shirtless, running along a beach next to a horse. He dives into the water (shirtless) for a swim. Rides the horse through the ocean. Shirtless. Blatant and effective objectification of a handsome, shredded young actor to push product. Not to mention objectifying the horse, which I think is just lovely.
None of this offends me. I’m just playing compare and contrast, pointing out how dumb the furore over the American Eagle ads is. It is exceptionally stupid.
The most famous, fun ad campaign from my teens was for Aussie underwear brand Antz Pantz. Drop-dead gorgeous model Toneya Bird wriggles around as ants crawl all over her thighs. An echidna waddles into shot. It looks hungry. The camera cuts between Bird’s ant-covered legs and the echidna; then, that famous line: “Sic ’em, Rex.”
Admittedly, as a grown woman I see it differently now than I did back then but, even so, it’s fun. It’s cheeky. It’s sexy and comes with a heavy nudge and a wink.
For what it’s worth, this ad also attracted complaints (which eventually were dismissed) to our advertising standards board and they’re absolute crackers: “I find this advertisement offensive because it implies that the women are actively seeking and enjoying sexual interactions with an animal.” Congratulations to whoever that person was for crossing the world’s longest bridge. Projection, perhaps?
In advertising, the female form has been lauded for generations. From Botticelli to Cecil Beaton to Guy Bourdin and beyond.
In 1980 Richard Avedone directed a campaign for Calvin Klein jeans featuring a fresh-faced, 15-year-old Brooke Shields.
“You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins?” she asked. “Nothing.”
Those ads were scandalous because of her age and I found myself wondering what Shields says of the experience. Recently, she told USA Today it was the invasive, “criminal” approach of the media that appropriated offence on her behalf that was most distressing.
Shields says she never felt sexualised or objectified. That it was the stress and confusion of “condescending” media interviews in which she was repeatedly asked if she felt bad about doing the commercial. Her reaction? “It just struck me as so ridiculous.”
American Eagle’s share price has soared. It is selling jeans like cheap beers on grand final day. This shows something else. Normal people are back. In the same way the drinkers of Bud Light beer punished brewer Anheuser-Busch for using advertising as a tool to promote progressive trans ideology, consumers increasingly are rewarding companies that do the opposite. That simply sell product.
Nobody is interested in the new prudism of the progressive left that sucks the joy out of everything and lectures us all for not surrendering to the misery. Get a life, people.
When it comes to advertising, I think there’s a clear message out of all of this. MAGA: Make Advertising Great Again. At least make it normal again.
Back to the beginning. The other reason this ad works so well, I think, is that it acknowledges a simple truth that genetics are a lottery. I got my dad’s nose (cheers, Bruno), his tendency to sweat buckets in any weather above 26C and childhood asthma. My brother got the tall, athletic, dancer’s physique of our mother and the best of our dad’s considerable sporting prowess. He also scored the blonde, blue-eyed features of Dad’s northern Italian genes. So much so that he’s constantly getting asked what part of Germany he’s from. Ah, but I got tonnes of hair! I’ll always have that.
You know what else I got? A genetic propensity to turn my back on the stupid. An absolute intolerance for bullying women based on ideology. A pretty strong BS detector. A crooked smile that reminds me of my dad. Not a bad lot, for sure. So, let me call it. You’ll never see me on a billboard but still, Gemma Tognini has good genes.
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