By now, we all know that Sydney Sweeney has been at the centre of a scandal since July of this year, when the star’s American Eagle campaign sparked backlash after it was accused of implicitly glorifying whiteness and promoting eugenics.
The campaign ran with the tagline: “Sydney Sweeney has great [genes],” and one of the commercials focused on Sydney’s blonde hair and blue eyes as she said: “Genes are passed down from parent to offspring, often determining traits like eye color, personality, and even hair color. My jeans are blue.”
But, as with all scandals, the whole thing ended up blowing over… Until last week, when the discourse erupted tenfold after Sydney broke her silence on the backlash in a controversial interview with GQ. Here, she downplayed the whole situation, and refused to comment on the interpretation that the ad was about eugenics.
When she was explicitly asked if she’d like to address the specific criticism that “white people shouldn’t joke about genetic superiority” in the current political climate, Sydney said: “I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”
Suffice to say, the quotes did not go down well — and the video footage of the interview only made things worse, with people calling out her nonchalant demeanor as she answered the questions. For reference, Sydney could be seen pulling faces and laughing, and even rolled her eyes at the question about “genetic superiority.”
Content creator Jupiter Baal hit out at Sydney in the video, which you can read more about here, and he added in the caption: “#sidneysweeney isn’t innocent. She is a willing participant on the in joke of #eugenics at a time in which the #farright is thriving on that propaganda.” In addition to Aimee, BuzzFeed can confirm that the in-depth post was liked by SZA, and Christina Ricci — with Christina reiterating her agreement in the comments by writing: “100%.”
But not everybody has turned their back on Sydney, with other names still interacting with her social media posts and expressing their support amid the uproar — including Amanda Seyfried, who she stars alongside in the upcoming movie The Housemaid.
In case you missed it, on Monday, Sydney posted an Instagram carousel in response to reports that her latest movie, Christy, has been a box office flop. Alongside some behind-the-scenes photos, she wrote a lengthy caption that concluded with: “yes I’m proud. why? because we don’t always just make art for numbers, we make it for impact.”
And Amanda was among Sydney’s followers to share her support in the comments, writing under the post: “YOU KILL. Brave and true.”
Mario Lopez commented on the same carousel: “You killed it! 🔥”
Esther McGregor liked Sydney’s GQ magazine post from one week ago, but has not interacted with any posts since the backlash kicked back up again.
As always, let me know your thoughts on the whole thing in the comments below!