On several occasions, like when she promoted soap for men that was infused with her bathwater, Sydney Sweeney has been called out for catering to the male gaze. And although her controversial American Eagle jeans ad campaign did come across as male gaze-y to many, that wasn’t the main reason it sparked so much backlash. So, when Sharon Stone defended Sydney’s ad campaign by saying “it’s hard to be hot,” critics accused her of missing the point entirely.
Sharon and Sydney have been working together for Euphoria Season 3. On Wednesday, October 29, Sydney was honored at Variety’s Power of Women event, and Sharon presented her award. When speaking to a Variety reporter at the event, Sharon acted as though people were upset about Sydney’s American Eagle campaign because she’s “hot.”
In reality, the campaign was accused of promoting eugenics.
People had an issue with the campaign’s tagline, “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” which was obviously a play on the word jeans/genes. In one of the ads, Sydney said, “Genes are passed down from parent to offspring, often determining traits like eye color, personality, and even hair color. My jeans are blue.”
The campaign went viral, with critics calling it “a love letter to white nationalism and eugenic fantasies” and “a MAGA x AE collab.”
People weren’t really mad about Sydney being hot.
Sure, some people who criticized the ad campaign did question who it was even for. Since the ad campaign was promoting women’s jeans, many critics wondered why it seemed like the brand was trying so hard to appeal to men instead. “Are we selling jeans to women or selling women in jeans to men?” one person questioned on social media at the time.
However, Sharon seemed to act like people thought the campaign was too sexy.
Speaking to Variety at Wednesday’s event, Sharon recalled a conversation she had with Sydney about the controversial American Eagle campaign. She remembered telling Sydney about when Jane Goodall was on the cover of Life Magazine.
Sharon told Sydney about how “other scientists” complained that Jane “only got the cover of Life Magazine because she had good legs.” According to Sharon, Jane said, “Well, if I did, then that helped me get more money for my research.”
In response to this anecdote, Sharon recalled Sydney saying, “Yeah, and I’m sure I made a billion dollars for the jeans company, and I’m good with that. Because, you know what? I’ll get another job.”
Sharon went on to argue that there’s nothing wrong with using your looks to get ahead. “It’s okay to use what mama gave you. It’s really fine,” Sharon told the reporter. “It’s hard to be hot, and I think we all know that. It’s really okay to use every bit of hotness you have — right here, right now — and go for whatever that is.”
And that’s a fair point — but it isn’t really the point.
Sharon didn’t mention the eugenics controversy at all, leading critics to call her out for overlooking the actual problem with the campaign. “Sharon, you may be missing the point here,” one critic wrote on Reddit. Someone else argued that using “every bit of hotness you have” is not OK “if it’s to promote racist ragebait.”
Another critic spelled out the issue by editing Sharon’s quote to reflect the actual issue people had with the campaign. “Lemme fix that… ‘It’s okay to use what your mama gave you… to deliberately invoke eugenics ideology as part of a [expletive] joke for an ad campaign in the midst of a literal fascist and white supremacist takeover of a country.’ That’s the issue.”
