The American Eagle clothing store recently stirred a hornets nest that has gotten them tons of publicity, and all they did was create a commercial. In some ways their commercial harkens back to the 1960 Calvin Klein ad for their jeans featuring Brooke Shields. The new version for American Eagle features Sydney Sweeney. In both ads, a sexy young woman is featured modeling a pair of jeans in a rather provocative way. The purpose of those ads was, of course, to create a buzz in order to sell their clothing line. And in both cases they definitely accomplished what they wanted.
Only this new one has an added dimension. In the Brooke Shields ad, the controversy was about the fact that a 15 year old was acting so sexually provocative. The new controversy centers more around some of the modern day culture war issues.
The controversy these days is not so much about the sexuality issue. Actually, if I have a complaint about it, the sexualizing of these young women would be my issue as it promotes worldview beliefs that are contrary to biblical morality. The modern day controversy, though, revolves more around race and the definition of beauty.
In the commercial, Sweeney speaks of her genes (a play on the jeans they are selling) and her blue eyes. The critics immediately jumped on this accusing the company of Nazi propaganda, accusing them of promoting eugenics.
In recent times, there has been a big push in advertising to not use gorgeous models as a means of getting the attention of viewers, but to use more average looking people. The idea being that we don’t want to body shame people, but help everyone feel “included.” Additionally, there has been a huge emphasis on using more people of color and to strongly de-emphasize whiteness. Of course, this emphasis is not just in advertising. It has also been strongly pushed in our educational and other cultural institutions based on their advocacy for Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
The opposition to this ad basically started on social media as the woke crowd jumped in calling it racist, and accusing its creators of being Nazis. Not very long ago, this would have been enough to get the company to back down and fall all over itself issuing an apology. But times are changing. Now people are starting to push back.
Almost immediately Vice President JD Vance mocked those who were critical. At that point, other critics of the critics came out of the woodwork pushing back. Finally, a news reporter asked President Trump what he thought, and mentioned that Sweeney was a registered Republican. Hearing that, Trump said, “If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.”
When the ad first came out, American Eagle’s stock immediately jumped about 10% and rose up to 12% over the next week. When the social media backlash started, it bounced back down. However, when President Trump weighed in, it shot back up 23-25% in a single day.
In analyzing all of this from a biblical worldview perspective, there are actually a couple of things that jump out at me. The criticism I have actually flows to both sides.
First, as I mentioned above, the use of sex to sell the clothing does not comport with the teachings of the Bible concerning sexual morality. The way Sweeney acted was deliberately designed to make people think that if only they would buy those jeans, they would look as sexy as she does and attract people sexually. Biblical sexual morality goes in an entirely different direction teaching that sex is reserved for marriage between a man and a woman.
On the other side of the ledger, where do the critics get off accusing the company of promoting racism and eugenics? The history of the party that is now represented by the left is full of both racism and eugenics – even up to modern times. CRT and DEI are both based on racism. Beyond that, promotion of abortion was born out of the eugenics movement and remains one of the top priorities of the modern day left that is criticizing American Eagle. In fact, the very reason for the founding of Planned Parenthood was to promote eugenics in the black community.
So, what should we conclude? Based on a biblical worldview, the American Eagle commercial is not good. At the same time, the beliefs of its critics is also not good. Neither point of view represents Christian beliefs.
And that is one of the difficult areas of discernment that comes into focus for Christians. Both sides are of this world, and Christians are not of this world. Christians need to base their beliefs on the teachings of the Bible, and not be for or against something simply because it is the opposite side of those we might disagree with politically. Our authority source is God’s revelation, not this world’s moral preferences.