Sex sells. So does fear. But sex+fear together? Now that’s bank!

Aria Novosedlik/Dreamface

by Aria Novosedlik

By now, everyone’s seen the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle jeans ad. She seductively lies on the floor, revealingly clad in her Canadian tuxedo. Somewhat aggressively, a male voice announces, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans (genes?)” When Sweeney declares "My jeans are blue", the camera lingers on her blue eyes, dissolving the distinction between product and person, jeans and genes.

Harkening back to a sexually disturbing Calvin Klein ad featuring fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields writhing around on the ground as she explains how genetics and sexual selection works, American Eagle has made its position clear: ‘all press is good press’. It’s not the ad so much as the controversy around the ad that makes it an effective campaign. 

Brooke Shields describes how 'naïve' she was while as young as 11 and cast in hyper-sexual roles. She would go on to describe the intense trauma that she only realized she'd experienced far later in life – a common phenomenon with children who've been sexualized by media. 

American Eagle briefly doubled down on the three-week-old campaign by releasing a few more Sweeney spots, stoking leftwing outrage while dog whistling white nationalists. At the same time, it got some help from the Megyn Kellys and Piers Morgans of the world, who mocked the left for being too ‘woke’. 

Meanwhile, the white nationalist MAGA base couldn’t contain its joy for the reboot of the Aryan girl-next-door myth. In fact, Trump himself lauded Sweeney on Truth Social upon finding out that she’s a registered republican: “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there. Go get ’em Sydney!” This from the man who used to be pedophile Jeffery Epstein’s best friend.

Sweeney registered a few months before the 2024 election and has not responded to questions about her politics, though she was caught not too long ago at her grandmother’s birthday party in a sea of red MAGA hats. In response to that, she claimed that people were ‘jumping to conclusions’; a vague rebuttal which allowed her to continue clinging to the 19 distinct brand sponsorships she currently has. She knows she’s the flavour of the week and is capitalizing on it.

Sidney Sweeney stands in front of an ad that she 'wheatpasted' herself'--or shall we call it 'whitepasted'

There’s something else, though, that she has tapped into, consciously or unconsciously: fear. The right is rigid, whereas the left is loose. There’s proof. In a 2020 article in the Scientific American, research consistently demonstrated that conservatives desire security, predictability and authority while liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance and complexity. Neurologically, conservatives often show stronger amygdala activation and have heightened physiological responses to perceived fears. (That’s why they’re called reactionary). 

The ad’s duration as a trend depends on its ability to continue tickling the white nationalists’ amygdalae. It exposes deeper cultural associations about heredity, superiority, and racial purity – all of which overlap with a need for security.

Look at the backlash against the infamous Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad. In this case it is the ‘otherness’ of transexuality that poses a threat to the heterosexual male gaze. It is the American Eagle ad in reverse.

Consequently, Bud Light fell from #1 to #3 beer in America and remains there over a year after its social outreach to a trans woman. It lost a full 30% of sales and is just barely recovering from its downfall. That kind of hit is astonishing and highlights just how powerful fear is for a certain group of people. Sure, sex sells, but both sexuality and fear combined into one super villain campaign? Foolproof!

Whether interpreted as eugenic dog-whistle or anti-woke statement, the American Eagle campaign accomplishes its fundamental goal: transforming commodity consumption into identity performance. In this sense, American Eagle hasn't just sold jeans—they've sold the opportunity to wear one's politics, quite literally, on one's body.

The Sweeney controversy thus represents not advertising failure but its ultimate success: the complete fusion of commerce, identity, and political expression that characterizes our current cultural moment.

Aria Novosedlik is a Toronto-based designer, writer and researcher.