Grammy-winning music artist Doja Cat has shared a video mocking the controversial new jeans campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney.
Sweeney, the 27-year-old star of HBO’s Euphoria and the 2023 romcom Anyone But You, fronted a series of advertisements for the clothing brand American Eagle.
In the adverts, Sweeney, can be seen posing in denim, while a tagline proclaims that she “has great jeans” – a pun on the word “genes”.
The campaign has prompted a backlash, with some people claiming that the phrase “great jeans” together with the references to hair and eye colour, evoke the language of eugenics – the racist and discredited belief that the human race can be improved through selective breeding.
In a video shared to TikTok on Tuesday (29 July), Doja Cat (real name Amala Dlamini) is seen reciting Sweeney’s words from one of the adverts in question, speaking in a comedically exaggerated southern US accent.
“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue,” Doja Cat says, quoting verbatim from the advert.
The parodic video, shared with the caption “My jeans are blee”, has amassed more than 16 million views at the time of writing.
American Eagle and Sweeney have yet to comment on the backlash to the advertisements. The Independent has contacted their representatives for comment.
@dojacat my jeans are blee
♬ original sound - Doja Cat
While the phrase “good genes”, and the reference to Sweeney’s blonde hair and blue eyes, has historically featured in the language of eugenics, many social media users have debated the intentionality behind American Eagle’s use of the phrase.
Others have suggested that the connotations were simply an oversight that should have been avoided at the conceptual level. “This is what happens when you have no people of colour in a room,” one person wrote. “Particularly in a time like this. This ad campaign got so caught up in this ‘clever’ play on words and this stunt, the people in the room missed what was so blatantly obvious to anyone not White.”
Doja Cat is a singer and rapper known for hits such as “Need to Know” and “Paint the Town Red”. She has been nominated for 16 Grammy Awards, winning once in 2022 (in the category of Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, for the song “Kiss Me More”, featuring SZA).
Her fifth studio album, titled Vie, is set to be released later this year.
