THE CULTURE-STUDIES INCANTATIONS HAVE LOST THEIR POWER.

American Eagle, referring to the clothier, not to the unlamented regional service of American Airlines, recently hired one Sydney Sweeney to endorse the company's denim wear.

As Mitch "Shot in the Dark" Berg notes, "For crying out loud - it was just an ad. One of hundreds of thousands like it, before and since."  Caroline Downey concurs in National Review.  "It’s about a pretty girl in blue jeans, not the superiority of one race."

Her colleague Charles C. W. Cooke expands on what followed.  "Swiftly after the ad was released, a handful of people on the internet began complaining that American Eagle had released a white supremacist commercial, and, as is often done, the self-licking ice cream cone was swung immediately into action."

What might matter more, dear reader, is how quickly the rage mob failed.  Hannah Holland, producer for MSNBC, surely tried.

The internet has been quick to condemn the advertisement as noninclusive at best and as overtly promoting “white supremacy” and “Nazi propaganda” at worst. These critics point to the copy and the implication of calling a white person superior because of their genes. In the videos, Sweeney exudes a sort of vintage sexiness that caters to the male gaze. She embodies the near mythological girl-next-door beautiful but low-maintenance sexy femininity that dominated media in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Together, the campaign feels regressive and not retro, offensive and not cheeky.

The advertisement, the choice of Sweeney as the sole face in it and the internet’s reaction reflect an unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness, conservatism and capitalist exploitation. Sweeney is both a symptom and a participant.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the rise and fall of another brand steeped in Americana: American Apparel. The column examined, in part, the role the now-shuttered company’s overtly sexual advertisements played in its success in the 2010s.

In both cases, American Apparel and, now, American Eagle, the cycle of outrage maintained or invigorated the company’s relevance. As we post, write, argue and engage, American Eagle is on a financial tear. It has earned controversial but lucrative status as a “meme stock,” a low-value stock that gains sudden popularity among retail investors. If the goal of paying for a high-profile advertising campaign is money and relevance, then by every metric this is a massive success for American Eagle.

Once upon a time, the rage mob would have driven the advertisement off the air, and Ms Sweeney and the senior managers of American Eagle would have abased themselves and pledged to be better.  Social attitudes have changed, not necessarily to Ms Holland's favor.  "Popular American culture is, indisputably, becoming more puritanical and more conservative."  Puritanical?  No, notes Sasha "Thinking through the Fourth Turning" Stone (herself possessed of a "good 'rack'"), the hot blonde is back.  "t is only white women who have been shamed and scolded and told to de-center themselves. The best way to do that is to ugly themselves up and to celebrate everything but their beauty and their sex appeal, which was a way to punish them."  Visit her post for a round-up of the sob-sisters of Ms Holland wetting themselves.  As Mr Cooke concludes about the culture studies types looking for somebody singing The Future Belongs to Me, "One has to be a total bloody moron."  Or, to use Outkick contributor Bobby Buran's locution, a eunuch.  The fall and winter outdoor wear catalogs are trickling into Cold Spring Shops headquarters, I wonder if the widebody count or the androgynous count among the models will be the same as last season.

Perhaps, as [Not the Detroit] Free Press contributor Kara Kennedy has it, shoppers would rather have an idea what the clothes would look like on something more like a normal body.

There was a time in the not very distant past when a beautiful woman selling jeans was just great advertising.

But lately the American public has grown used to a very different kind of ad, which tried to convince us beauty is whatever they say it is this week. You know the ones: the sagging swimsuit campaigns, the big-and-proud lingerie shoots, the breathless press releases declaring that representation is the new hotness. For roughly a decade, brands insisted on telling us what we should find sexy—stretch marks, back rolls, visible panic disorders—whether we liked it or not.

The body positivity movement told us, loudly and constantly, that everyone is beautiful, that all bodies are worthy of the spotlight, that a triple chin was not only normal, but empowering. Obesity wasn’t a health crisis, it was an identity. That era wasn’t really about celebrating women. It was about neutralizing beauty. Sanding down the sharp edges of desirability until no one felt left out, and no one stood out.

It was all a lie, but somebody, whether it was Donald Trump or the creative team at American Eagle, had to say Enough, and from there it was on the Normals to tell the culture studies types to shut up.  "It’s cultural revenge for years of being told to find dumpy lingerie models inspiring. To believe in the polite fiction that beauty is subjective."

The marketing environment has changed.  "‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ Is An Admission That Woke Marketing Was A Mistake."  At The Federalist, Jacqueline Annis-Levings (a collegian, note) is not quite ready to declare victory in this skirmish of the Culture Wars.

The Sydney Sweeney ad campaign has experienced backlash for oversexualization and catering to the male gaze. Some of this criticism is fair — we’ve moved up from the third circle to the second, but we are still in hell — but the reality that sex sells is a conversation for another time. What’s worth noting is that many see hot women as MAGA-coded because the left has pushed so-called “body positivity” and radical ideology for so many years.

Maybe those mentally disturbed boys trying out for the girls' swim teams changed a few minds among young ladies who, hot or not, cringed at Undeniable Truth of Life N^o. 24.  Another Outkick contributor, Zach Dean, can be more plain spoken.  "The fact that a hot blonde chick with big boobs has become an ENEMY in the eyes of Democrats tells you everything you need to know. And it's exactly why Republicans are in the driver's seat right now."

And Christian "Hollywood in Toto" Toto, once of Milwaukee, calls attention to the dog that didn't bark.

The media even lent gravitas to cries that the spot promoted eugenics and/or White Supremacy. Four years ago, American Eagle would have coughed up a corporate mea culpa.

We are retracting the ad campaign … we will be allies moving forward … America has no tolerance for White Supremacy™.

You know the drill. We all lived through it over the past decade, particularly following the Summer of Love protests after George Floyd’s death.

Not this time.

In a statement posted on American Eagle’s Instagram account on Friday, the retailer said the ad campaign “is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”

Translation: Pound sand. Sweeney has yet to publicly comment on the matter.

Now, the media is circling back to another part of the Cancel Culture playbook, hoping this one might stick.

Her registration as a Republican in Florida?  They're all going to laugh at you.  As did more than a few social media wiseacres, who suggested all sorts of provocative titles for future Sydney Sweeney movies.  (There will not be a history quiz later.)

As for American Eagle, National Review's Jeffrey Blehar suggests there might be a future Harvard Business School case study coming.  In marketing and brand positioning, mind you.

I feel no need to wade into the nonsensically frothy discourse surrounding Sweeney’s eugenic superiority, I do want to raise a glass to the hardworking professionals out there who put this ad campaign together: Congratulations on creating the opposite of a cultural Bud Light moment for your brand, for getting people talking about your blue jeans in a way that makes them inclined to buy and wear, rather than boycott, them. You are the real men and women of genius.

As for American Eagle themselves, well, their response to the rage mob wasn't "Aw, nuts!" or "pound sand," but they weren't backing down.  "We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone."  Good.