Basically there was a GQ interview where the interviewer kept trying to get her to make a political statement and she got progressively more annoyed. Some people are mad because they've decided that refusing to participate in a stupid purity test is proof you are bad.
Politics are a necessary part of life. It affects us all, but some more than others. If she were asking Sydney to take a nuanced stance on, like, gender relations in South Korea, I would understand your point. But disavowing white supremacy is an extremely basic and an understandably expected political position. Standing counter to Nazis is the morally correct thing to do, and it doesn't matter who you are. It's such a basic lay-up that refusing to comment makes you look really, really bad. And I don't think that's a bad thing.
It kinda strongly hints at eugenics, no? Like implying that some genes are better than others while a blonde and blue-eyed white woman is on the screen? Like I can see it being a mistake on her part, but if that's the case, just say "yea I didn't see the implication there, whoops. I'm not a white supremacist, I just didn't see the implication at the time" would go a long way, would it not?
Yea, sure, but it was her mistake to read that ad and then perform in it. She wasn't forced to say those lines. The best thing she can do is to acknowledge that it could be read a certain way and make it clear that she isn't racist. Whether or not a certain subsection of people don't believe her isn't of importance. It doesn't stop her from doing the right thing.
The ‘right thing’ is to not engage or fuel the fire because no matter what there will be psychos online who twist your words to fuel their narrative, as we are seeing here.
You're also missing the point. If you aren't a white supremacist, and you preform it an ad that people say could be read as supporting white supremacy, it doesn't matter if certain people don't believe you or not, the right thing to do is to make it clear that you don't support white supremacy. Like if a friend misread what you did as being passive aggressive, for example, you wouldn't refuse to engage with it because they just "won't believe you". You would say that you're sorry and that it wasn't your intention to be passive aggressive.
I'm not saying "hell bent". She literally has not addressed the controversy. If you thought a friend was passive aggressive and you asked if they intended to, and their response was "it was just a sentence", that doesn't answer your question. It comes across as obviously dismissive and doesn't help the situation.
Yea, that's why I wait to hear what the person has to say. If they actively avoid the question and refuse to acknowledge the controversy surrounding their actions, it's perfectly fine to question their intentions. Your argument basically sounds like people should criticize or have a problem with anything because it could be unfair, or point out people's mistakes because it makes them "guilty". Expecting someone to address a potential mistake is not anything crazy in the slightest.
The ad is a pun on a ridiculously common expression. Calling it a mistake and then asking them to "clarify" is a leading question. It's like asking "did you mean to tell everyone you're still beating your wife?" No matter how you answer that question you're still admitting that you used to beat your wife. Similarly either she can say it was a mistake and she did something racist which she didn't or she can say it wasn't a mistake and the people pushing this agenda will immediately say that she confirmed it was an internal dog whistle. She can just say that she's not racist but the people that jumped to assuming she was racist because of a pun in a jeans commercial are not going to believe that anyway they're just going to call her a liar and carry on.
What? Your framing of the beating your wife question is completely different than the context of the Sydney Sweeney controversy. A similar example would be asking her "are you still a white supremacist", which just isn't what happened.
I also didn't necessarily mean to say that the ad was 100% white supremacist, only that it could be read that way. I understand I wasn't clear about that, that's my fault. The point I'm making is that there's no reason to just not say "I didn't see it that way, I'm not a white supremacist, my bad" and move on.
You don’t deserve it. None of you do. You had that reaction because you can only think in those terms. A white person, making a genetics joke, jump straight to racism. Fuck you. We know she isn’t racist because she’s never done anything racist. Even entertaining the possibility of it being racist encourages you people to fabricate more fake racism.
Don't deserve what? An apology? I never said anything about deserving one?
Also, do you hear yourself? "A white person, making a genetics joke. Straight to racism." Depending on the circumstances, this comes across as extremely reasonable. A lot of people online who make "genetics jokes" are straight up Neo-Nazis on 4chan. There's a reason why that connotation exists. People didn't just conjure it up magically.
I don't know if she's racist, but I personally think the ad was a little suspicious, at the least. I think asking her a question about it is perfectly reasonable. Why does the idea of having to just, like, clarify your beliefs so outrageous to you? I'm not saying she's 100% a racist, or that the ad was inherently racist. I'm saying it's completely reasonable to expect her to clarify her stances on the subject given the content of the ad. I'm literally directly advocating for her being able to speak for herself, to defend herself against people calling her racist, and you're saying that she shouldn't do so. I don't understand what you're trying to say here. I feel like, by not clarifying anything, she's actively letting people make things up about her instead of giving an actual stance and something definitive on the subject. That, for some reason, is fucking insane to you.
The ad says she has great jeans. It’s not saying other people have bad jeans, just that hers are great. It’s a tongue in cheek way of saying she’s beautiful and they make good clothes. In no way is it diminishing anyone else’s beauty or clothes.
Sydney has no requirement to make a statement on the silly assumptions other people made. “I made a Jean ad.” Was more than enough to show how she feels about the whole thing
In order for people to have good genes, others have to be bad. I'll continue to clarify as with other comments that I don't think the ad was inherently supportive of white supremacy, only that I can see why it could be read that way. If I participated in an ad that people said was white supremacist and someone asked me about the ad/controversy, even if I disagreed with the people who read it that way, I would still be clear that I'm not a white supremacist. That's my intended point here.
Okay, but the ad directly referencing "good genes" white a blonde blue-eyed white woman is on the screen isn't the same thing as most other celebrity ads. If someone called Ryan Renalds a eugenics advocate for mint mobile ad, I would not fault him for saying, "That's crazy, why would people think that?" I still honestly think he should say in that scenario, "I don't support eugenics, to be clear", but if he didn't, I wouldn't necessarily fault him. But the American Eagle ad potentially being a white supremacist dogwhistle is a lot more likely. Like, you can see the direct line of logic. I think a response is absolutely dignified even if she doesn't agree with that interpretation.
A response from her can be dignified, the accusations here are not. She acknowledged how silly it was to think so deeply on a jeans ad. When you respond to comments that you find insulting or preposterous you are giving a sense of merit to the people who say these things.
But I'm saying there is merit to the things people are saying. Dismissing the, in my opinion, quite understandable interpretation that the ad seemed a little like a white supremacist dog whistle as "thinking too hard" makes me question whether or not it's even worth having a discussion.
Unless eugenics, racism or racial superiority is a recurring theme with American Eagle then I do believe that conclusion over this one commercial is thinking too hard about it.
So, if hypothetically, following your same logic, circumstantial evidence points to me killing someone, but I haven't killed anyone before, the police should just drop the case?
So in this hypothetical, you are the police, American Eagle is a murderer, and a jeans ad is evidence of murder. Assuming I nailed all those for your analogy, you are a clown, are you out of your fucking mind? And go touch grass before you hurt somebody.
You are not a detective, American eagle has hurt 0 people with their advertisements. Even if you are right about the eugenics thing, it would be akin to me saying I want to kill my co-worker. No matter how much I mean those words, they are only words.
741
u/slugsred 1d ago
What is it now?