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Corporate America is not falling for the left’s outrage over Sydney Sweeney’s ‘good jeans’ ad
The left is trying its best to stir up a furor over the recent Sydney Sweeney jeans (or is it genes) TV commercial to ignite a backlash similar to the Dylan Mulvaney-Bud Light debacle.
Sorry progressives, it ain’t happening.
Yes, there’s lots of chirping from lefty columnists, purple-haired TikTok influencers, late-night hosts who are still employed, and assorted wokesters after American Eagle had the audacity to feature the attractive blond, blue-eyed actress expressing her sartorial flair in a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans.
“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color . . . my jeans are blue,” the “Euphoria” star says.
The ad ends with a voice-over: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
Blond women? Blue-eyed? Good genes (I mean jeans)? Oh, the horror! That’s if you are listening to the leftist commentariat that still hasn’t piped down weeks after the spot first appeared. The lefties are freaking because they think the jeans company is looking to bring back the bad old days, pre-George Floyd of course, when white blond oppressors ruled over American culture.
It’s all very Hitler-like to the progressive numbskull class, but not to just about every other segment of American society. Most Americans of all colors and genders either don’t care, or they know good genes and jeans when they see it.
I know this based on lots of reporting on the mind virus known wokeness — the progressive orthodoxy that embraces everything from cultural Marxism, DEI and, of course, the oppressor-oppressed theology.
We are a diverse country, and that’s good. The wokesters take it to a level that excludes rather than includes. Good-looking white people, particularly if their hair is that evil shade known as blond, are nowhere near the intersectional matrix they demand for hiring or image making in their version of America.
That’s why Sydney Sweeney, known more for her cleavage than her politics, has become a touchstone in our culture wars, and here’s why the attacks won’t work: Wokeness was once big in the business world, but notice my use of the past tense.
Corporate America listened to these kooks for many reasons, including their own progressive management leanings, with disastrous results. They learned the hard way that most Americans of all races hate being proselytized with political dogma, particularly of the left-wing variety that pushes the limits of identity and gender politics beyond cultural norms.
I chronicled this spectacle with a healthy dose of schadenfreude in my book “Go Woke Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America.” Just a few short years ago, DEI was the norm; so was radical environmentalism pushed by asset managers through something called ESG investing. It was difficult finding a straight man or woman — God forbid a blond — who survived the Madison Avenue woke censor machine.
Budweiser thought its customers were ready for a commercial featuring a half-naked trans woman in a bubble bath. Disney decided it could sell more kids programming featuring same-sex kissing scenes. Money managers like BlackRock thought they could increase returns by advocating environmentalism and de facto racial quotas on their portfolio companies.
All of the above resulted in some of the biggest brand-destroying disasters in modern business history.
Marketing is a lot like politics. It’s a business of addition, not subtraction. You build customers just like you attract voters, through messaging that unites rather than divides — or customers flee. There are exceptions, of course. Niche brands like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream attempt and succeed at targeting the tree-hugger demo.
Try this stuff on a mass audience and you will get the beatdown of the century. The predictable customer revolt impacted the businesses of Budweiser, Disney and BlackRock in such a measurable way that shareholders revolted, too, forcing some of the most progressive CEOs in the world to course-correct.
That’s why the Sydney Sweeney uproar will go nowhere with the people who matter most: Most American consumers, and American Eagle shareholders. Unless you’re stretching it like Silly Putty, there’s nothing inherently political about a pretty blond (dare I say “All American”-looking) woman in jeans and pointing out the health of her genes to sell stuff. Zero. Zilch. Otherwise, Pamela Anderson would have been a poster child for Aryan Nations instead of the “Baywatch” babe most American men and many women adored, and still do.
Shares of American Eagle are up since the Sydney Sweeney ad ran, despite the backlash. NYU Marketing Professor Eitan Muller points out the obvious, telling Fox Business’s Teuta Dedvukaj that the commercial “attracts attention, drives Google searches, and boosts the brand. Yes, she does have great genes — and it rings authentic. That’s what you want from an ad.”
My bet: You will be seeing a lot more of Sydney Sweeney. Most men will be rejoicing, many women will buy the company’s jeans. Management will be rewarded with higher sales and a stock price that matches. The attacks will ultimately fail for the same reason Mulvaney’s tenure as a spokeswoman for Bud Light was so short-lived. Recall: The nation’s Number 1-selling beer dropped to Number 3 and never recovered.
Sydney Sweeney has both good jeans and genes and there’s nothing the wokesters can do to change that reality.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — — New quarterback Tommy Castellanos led a punishing rushing attack for Florida State with 78 yards and a touchdown as the Seminoles stunned No. 8 Alabama 31-17 on Saturday, ending the Crimson Tide’s streak of 23 straight wins in season openers.
Coming off a 2-10 season, Florida State handed a crushing setback to Alabama, which was viewed as a College Football Playoff contender under second-year coach Kalen DeBoer.
Students and fans swarmed the field at Doak Campbell Stadium to celebrate the upset by the Seminoles, who were 13 1/2-point underdogs according to Sportsbook.
Under new offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn — who spent eight seasons as Auburn’s head coach — Florida State was physical from the start, finishing with 230 rushing yards and averaging 4.7 yards per carry. The Seminoles averaged just 89.9 yards during their disastrous 2024 season.
The Crimson Tide had not dropped a season opener since losing 20-17 to UCLA in 2001 under Dennis Franchione, and this defeat will ratchet up the pressure on DeBoer from the demanding Tuscaloosa faithful. His predecessor, Nick Saban, led Alabama to six national titles.
DeBoer fell to 6-4 against unranked teams at Alabama; Saban went 124-4 in such games.
Alabama couldn’t solve Florida State’s defense, finishing with 87 rushing yards on 29 carries. Florida State halted Alabama three times on fourth down, the final time coming with 5:39 to go.
Castellanos, a Boston College transfer, had 16 carries while no one else had more than seven rushing attempts for the Seminoles. He also completed 9 of 14 passes for 152 yards as Florida State defeated its first ranked opponent since knocking off No. 19 Louisville in the 2023 Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.
Micahi Danzy, Caziah Holmes and Gavin Sawchuk also had rushing touchdowns for Florida State.
Ty Simpson completed 23 of 43 passes for 254 yards and two touchdowns in his Alabama debut. Germie Bernard led Alabama with eight catches for 146 yards.
Alabama: The Crimson Tide scored on an opening drive that went 8 minutes, 50 seconds, but struggled to sustain drives the rest of the afternoon.
Florida State: The Seminoles bounced back on a big stage as coach Mike Norvell began his sixth season by picking up a fifth win over a Southeastern Conference team.
Alabama hosts Louisiana-Monroe next Saturday.
Florida State hosts East Texas A&M next Saturday.
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Alabama vs. Florida State live updates: Crimson Tide, Seminoles battle in clash of marquee brands
One of the biggest nonconference clashes of Week 1 features No. 8 Alabama making its first-ever trip to Tallahassee, Florida, squaring off against a Florida State team that is looking to erase the disappointment of 2024 with a strong performance from a retooled Seminoles roster.
Alabama enters the 2025 with its own bounce-back motivations after last year’s 9-4 finish fell short of expectations for Year 1 under Kalen DeBoer. After inheriting Nick Saban’s program, DeBoer fell just short of the 12-team College Football Playoff in part because of multiple losses as a double-digit favorite. That’s the same favorite status the Crimson Tide carry into this season-opening road tilt, providing a great opportunity for Alabama to start its playoff march by reversing that trend.
For Florida State, there’s a lot at stake in terms of proving that last season’s stunning collapse was just a blip on the radar. After going 13-1 in 2023, Mike Norvell’s team started the season in the top 10 and proceeded to go 2-10. Norvell made new hires at offensive coordinator (Gus Malzahn) and defensive coordinator (Tony White) and brings in a host of transfer talent, including quarterback Tommy Castellanos, to try and flip the script and get the program back on track.
It’s a huge statement spot for both teams in what should be an electric environment in a renovated Doak Campbell Stadium.
Keep it locked here as CBS Sports provides you with live updates, highlights and analysis as Alabama battles Florida State to open the 2025 season in Week 1.
Bernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign, after recent chaos across US health agencies.
In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”
“Mr Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office President Trump and Mr Kennedy have done exactly the opposite,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders pointed to the White House’s firing of Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as four other top CDC officials who resigned in protest this week after Monarez “refused to act as a rubber stamp” for Kennedy’s “dangerous policies”.
“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts,” Sanders wrote.
“Against the overwhelming body of evidence within medicine and science, what are secretary Kennedy’s views? … He has absurdly claimed that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’ … Who supports secretary Kennedy’s views? Not credible scientists and doctors. One of his leading ‘experts’ that he cites to back up his bogus claims on autism and vaccines had his medical license revoked and his study retracted from the medical journal that published it.”
Sanders went on: “The reality is that secretary Kennedy has profited from and built a career on sowing mistrust in vaccines. Now, as head of [the Department of Health and Human Services] he is using his authority to launch a full-blown war on science, on public health and on truth itself.”
Pointing to what he described as “our broken health care system”, Sanders said that Kennedy’s repeated attacks against science and vaccines will make it more difficult for Americans to obtain lifesaving vaccines.
“Already, the Trump administration has effectively taken away Covid vaccines from many healthy younger adults and kids, unless they fight their way through our broken health care system. This means more doctor’s visits, more bureaucracy and more people paying higher out-of-pocket costs – if they can manage to get a vaccine at all,” he wrote.
The senator warned that Kennedy’s next target may be the childhood immunization schedule, which involves a list of recommended vaccines for children to protect them from diseases including measles, chickenpox and polio.
“The danger here is that diseases that have been virtually wiped out because of safe and effective vaccines will resurface and cause enormous harm,” Sanders said.
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In recent days, the Trump administration has faced rare bipartisan pushback following its firing of Monarez, which came amid steep budget cuts to the CDC’s work as well as growing concerns of political interference.
Meanwhile, Kennedy has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been lambasted in response by experts and lawmakers alike.
Since he assumed leadership over the health department, Kennedy – a longtime anti-vaccine advocate – has fired health agency workers and entertained conspiracy theories. Last week, more than 750 current and former employees at US health agencies signed a letter in which they criticized Kennedy as an “existential threat to public health”.
The health agency workers went on to accuse the health secretary of being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information”.
The letter comes after a deadly shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, when a 30-year-old gunman fired more than 180 rounds into the buildings, killing a police officer before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shooter had been struggling with mental health issues and was influenced by misinformation that led him to believe the Covid-19 vaccine was making him sick, according to the gunman’s father.
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