Who’s afraid of Sydney Sweeney‘s double-decker décolletage? Apparently, vast chunks of elite left-wing media, given its widespread apoplexy in response to the Emmy-nominated actress’s new denim campaign for American Eagle.

MSNBC deemed Sweeney “disappointing” for starring in a “dangerous” American Eagle advertising campaign that embraces “an unbridled cultural shift towards whiteness.” The style correspondents of the Washington Post debated whether Sweeney’s ad promoted “eugenics” or if it was just a part of a pattern of “thinness, whiteness and unapologetic wealth porn.” NPR equated the 27-year-old’s commercial to the infamous Calvin Klein campaign starring a 14-year-old Brooke Shields, while USA Today said the very product itself was the problem.

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“That the controversy stems from a denim ad, and one from a company with ‘American’ in the name, further complicates the reception,” writes entertainment reporter Anna Kaufman. “Americana and denim go hand in hand, the stiff fabric harkening back to cowboy culture, workmen’s uniforms and other mythologized aspects of the national identity.”

Perhaps the chattering class ought to keep their shirts on, as it is what is underneath them that the American Eagle ad is really about.

The ad in question features a fully clothed Sweeney buttoning her jeans as she suggestively intones for the camera.

“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,” says Sweeney as the camera pans from her distinguished derriere to her indigo eyes. “My jeans are blue.”

Unlike the notoriously exploited Shields at the time of the Calvin Klein campaign, Sweeney is an almost-30-year-old woman who looks and acts like a fully grown woman. Unlike plenty of her Hollywood peers who have surgically distorted their visages into the frighteningly homogenous “Instagram face,” Sweeney’s face is more or less au naturel, as is her blonde hair. But literally the whole point of the ad — the good “genes” to which she’s referring — is her famously authentic figure.

The rest of the ads in the series play on the obvious fact that Sweeney is as famous for her acting prowess (which is genuinely impressive across a diverse range of genres) as her bodacious bosom. One ad zooms in on her chest as she mockingly chastises the cameraman to bring his “eyes up here.” Sure, her “genes” in the form of her eyes may be blue, and the “jeans” she’s modeling are blue, but all advertisements aim to do, the “genes” in question are aspirational for the audience: buy these American Eagle jeans and tops, and you too will gain Sweeney’s conspicuous curves.

Or at least, I should say, until the last five to 10 years, commercializing aspirational attributes is what advertisements used to do. In the past decade, Victoria’s Secret dumped its statuesque Angels and flattering lingerie for Megan Rapinoe in a sports bra. The high-contrast and intentionally posed pictorial styles of American Apparel and Abercrombie and Fitch have died alongside artistry as an advertising virtue. Even the hyper-chiseled gay men famous for frequenting Tom Ford campaigns have been replaced by his polar opposite: the straight but utterly emasculated youth.

MARRIAGE MEANS BETTER SEX AND MORE OF IT

The irony of the outrage over Sweeney is that, other than her pose and playful embrace of her own sex appeal, the American Eagle ad otherwise embraces the contemporary aesthetics of soft lighting, natural makeup, and a comfortable, fully clothed model, rather than the edgy and aggressive mood of prior generations of jeans ads.

The problem, for the anti-aspirational Left, is that a naturally blonde-haired, blue-eyed bombshell cannot be allowed to luxuriate in her own looks. It’s identity politics brewed with a bevy of resentment and more than a dash of the Left’s increasing vilification of normal and libidinous heterosexuality. The most subversive model in today’s fashion industry is not the obese one, the transgender one, the blue-haired one, or the hijab one, but the natural beauty with good jeans and an even better bust.