The woke mob has been crying “Nazi” over American Eagle’s latest ad campaign, featuring starlet Sydney Sweeney sultrily explaining genetics to sell jeans, likening the assertion that a pretty blonde actress “has good jeans” to a call for eugenics. After years of being inundated with commercials filled with progressive messaging and gender ideology, many on the Right are celebrating the commercial. That’s wrong, too. It’s not conservative or good for families and society for women to publicly sexualize themselves.
Now this commercial is nothing new: beautiful women posing suggestively to sell products is just about as old as marketing itself. Even the ad’s specific concept isn’t original, as it’s a clear remake of one a teenage Brooke Shields did for Calvin Klein in the 1980s. What’s changed is the positioning of this ad in the culture war.
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Understandably, many people are just happy to see a fairly conventional commercial starring a conventionally attractive young woman. And the opportunity to appreciate that which causes liberals to panic doesn’t hurt the campaign’s appeal. But this is a depressingly low standard. Drag queen story hour isn’t the answer. But Sweeney isn’t either.
The objectification of women doesn’t suddenly become conservative or Christian just because it’s done in a manner that offends woke sensibilities.
It’s fine that this ad is out there; that’s just the world we live in. But Christians and conservatives shouldn’t be promoting it as a win. Christian leaders saying the Sweeney ad is a cultural victory are implicitly stating that it’s perfectly acceptable and even laudable for women to be treated as sex objects. We’ve been fighting woke and anti-Christian themes in marketing for so long that many are now perfectly comfortable selling out women’s dignity as long as we don’t have to look at an obese man with a full beard wearing a tutu.
And Christian and conservative leaders are not just accepting the ad, but promoting it widely. My teenage son doesn’t need to see it, and my teenage daughters don’t need to imitate it. I don’t want my daughters being told that this is how women are supposed to act, or my son hearing that this is what he is meant to expect from girls.
Christians and conservatives should not be endorsing the sexualization of young women merely because it frustrates the right, meaning Left, people. If degrading women meant conservatism, then Larry Flynt should have spoken at the RNC, and Andrew Tate should be our presidential candidate for 2028.
Ads like this are not going away for better or, as in this case, for worse. So long as “sex sells,” women will continue to degrade themselves in marketing for the profit and attention it can generate for themselves and the companies that employ them. But we don’t need to encourage this debasing merely because it’s not woke, or the girl being debased votes Republican.
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Being anti-woke is not in and of itself Christian, virtuous, or conservative. It’s a position defined by what it’s against, not by what it’s for. As an increasing number of people tire of the stringent requirements to be accepted by the woke Left and begin pushing back, it is imperative not to confuse opposing wokeness with supporting conservative principles.
Christians believe we are all created in the image of God and we are all due respect and dignity. This includes men, women, and children, including the unborn. Just as we cannot support murderous abortions, we must not trade the dignity of women for anti-woke posturing. Women deserve better than to be objectified. All women, including Sweeney.
Shawn Carney is the president and CEO of 40 Days for Life, the world’s largest pro-life organization, and bestselling author of four books, including What to Say When 2: Your Proven Guide in the New Abortion Landscape. Follow him on X @CarneyShawn.