{"id":156816,"date":"2025-08-18T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/156816\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T22:22:08","slug":"despite-online-maga-freakout-about-her-jeans-sydney-sweeneys-new-movie-bombs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/156816\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Online MAGA Freakout About Her Jeans, Sydney Sweeney’s New Movie Bombs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, American Eagle launched a new ad campaign<\/a> for its blue jeans line that featured actress Sydney Sweeney. In one of the ads, Sweeney weirdly broached the topic of genetics (she said, and I quote: \u201cgenes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue\u201d), but, for the most part, the ads seem to be about how great Sweeney\u2019s posterior looks<\/a> when she\u2019s wearing the company\u2019s denim.<\/p>\n

Not long after the jeans ads aired, the internet collectively lost its mind.<\/p>\n

One TikToker compared the ad<\/a> to \u201cNazi propaganda\u201d and, soon, NPR had dubbed it<\/a> the \u201cad campaign that launched a thousand critiques.\u201d CNN asked<\/a> what America had \u201clearned\u201d from the Sweeney \u201csituation.\u201d Vox used the episode to wax eloquent<\/a> about the \u201cunsettling legacy of the blonde bombshell.\u201d Dr. Phil<\/a> and Lizzo<\/a> both got upset\u2014for different reasons\u2014and America\u2019s president, in a move that was very on-brand for him, issued a mispelling-strewn statement calling \u201cSidney\u201d\u2018s ad the \u201cHOTTEST<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a number of high-profile MAGA folks (including J.D. Vance<\/a>, Charlie Kirk, and Ted Cruz<\/a>) attempted to commandeer the topic, and use it to spur a backlash to the supposed backlash to Sweeney\u2019s ads. To contextualize the recent drama, Rolling Stone magazine unveiled a timeline<\/a> of America\u2019s conservatives efforts to \u201cclaim\u201d Sweeney for themselves as a cultural icon.<\/p>\n

Based on the national conversation we were all just forced to have about Sweeney and her jeans, one would\u2019ve thought MAGA\u2019s collective lust for Sweeney could have easily been translated into hefty box office numbers for her newest movie, Americana. After all, if middle America is now collectively salivating over Sweeney, wouldn\u2019t they want to go see her every chance they get? Apparently that\u2019s not how things worked out, however.<\/p>\n

Sweeney\u2019s new movie only garnered an estimated $500,000 during its opening weekend, The Hollywood Reporter has noted<\/a>. Film critics have been lukewarm to positive about the film, with Vulture<\/a> calling it \u201ca \u201990s-style ensemble crime movie that engages in a sly exploration of the iconography and mythology we use to define the country\u201d and RogerEbert.com noting that<\/a> the film is not \u201cparticularly political\u201d but that it is \u201cblessed with a fairly strong cast.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Americana\u2018s real problem would appear to be less the fact that its lead actress\u2019s brand endorsements have stirred up controversy and more about the fact that most people haven\u2019t heard of it. I go to the movies a lot, and am generally aware of the upcoming developments at my local cinema, and I can\u2019t say that I\u2019d even seen an ad for Americana or heard much about it prior to writing this article. The movie\u2019s ad, which seems to offer a run-of-the-mill comedic crime romp, doesn\u2019t have much of a partisan bent.<\/p>\n

The internet is not a real place, but not infrequently, through a kind of alchemical magic, it can produce real-world events. Sometimes the web can stir up so much ideological turmoil that it spills offline and into the real world (just look at January 6th<\/a>, if you need an example).<\/p>\n

The problem is that no one really cared that deeply about the American Eagle ad in the first place. A few pissed off leftists and a gaggle of MAGA commentators attempted to get everyone to care about it, and the news media carried the story into our collective consciousness, if only to have something somewhat entertaining to write about instead of the incessant horrors visited upon us daily by the Trump administration. For Fox News, it was a way to avoid talking about the incessant horrors visited upon us daily by the Trump administration, in a different way<\/a>. Still, despite the best efforts of a select few to make the Great Jeans War of 2025 happen, America\u2019s heart just wasn\u2019t in it. A recent poll<\/a> from The Economist\/YouGov showed only 12 percent of Americans found the ad \u201coffensive.\u201d We\u2019ve been through a solid half-decade of having our minds messed with by the Extremely Online, and America may have completely exhausted its moral panics.<\/p>\n