Sydney Sweeney seems to be making a habit of finding herself in the headlines for the wrong reasons of late.
The star’s latest film Americana opened nationwide in more than 1,100 theaters last week but delivered a weak US$500,000 opening weekend, ranking just 16th at the box office.
The release, already delayed nearly two years since its 2023 South by Southwest premiere, has been met with mixed reviews. RogerEbert.com called it “a mess,” while the New York Post gave it one star out of four, suggesting Sweeney’s character, a shy waitress with dreams of becoming a singer, stretched believability.
If her on-screen performance has divided critics, her off-screen endorsements have proved even more contentious.
The box office disappointment coincides with backlash over Sweeney’s denim campaign for American Eagle. The ad, titled ‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,’ played on the pun between denim and genetics.
Instead of resonating as lighthearted wordplay, it drew accusations of being “eugenics-coded,” “racist,” and “tone-deaf,” with critics highlighting how the campaign sexualised Sweeney while also reinforcing troubling cultural tropes around whiteness and beauty standards.
The backlash underscores just how easily a celebrity’s off-screen partnerships can bleed into perceptions of their on-screen work, a reminder that in the era of cancel culture, professional projects and personal brand are no longer separate worlds, but tightly intertwined.
The Double-Edged Sword Of Star Power
Hannah McElhinney, chief creative officer and co-founder at culture first creative agency Snack Drawer, said the American Eagle campaign is a textbook example of how celebrity endorsements can turn volatile.
“Celebrities are lightning rods that can get millions of eyeballs on a campaign, for better or worse, and the American Eagle campaign is an example of ‘worse,’” she explained.
“Our recent Fandomination! report showed that criticising a beloved brand is a crucial part of expressing fandom. They critique because they care, and there’s a level of investment or expectation. So when these things do happen, it’s really important that the brand responds thoughtfully, in much the same way as you would if you had hurt a dear friend.”
Instead, McElhinney warned, many brands jump too quickly.
“A knee-jerk apology will often not fare well. It comes across disingenuous to the people that are angry but also enrages those who consider themselves ‘anti-cancel culture’ by caving in to the critics. What brands need to do is actually examine the process and internal biases that led them to create it, and understand what people’s criticism is about before responding.”
Viral, But Does It Sell?
The campaign may have gone viral, but data suggests it has not meaningfully helped American Eagle. Online visits to the brand’s website surged by 60 per cent in the days following the ad’s release, and its stock price jumped 12 per cent.
But according to analytics firm Pass_by, in-store traffic dropped 3.9 per cent in the first week after the campaign and a further 9 per cent the following week. Consumer Edge data also found no meaningful increase in jeans sales or market share.
McElhinney argued that this disconnect is a common pitfall when controversy fuels attention.
“It went viral for the controversy which is ultimately was a distraction from the brand. Virality and hype sits at a very surface level of a fandom, there’s often not a lot of deep engagement there and the trick for brands wanting to use hype is to be able to drive people they attract at that level deeper into the fandom”.
Creative Blind Spots
While some observers saw the ad as deliberately provocative, McElhinney believes the issue was more about blind spots within the creative process.
“The American Eagle campaign felt more like the creatives were chasing wordplay, trend-chasing the return to ‘sex sells’ a la Calvin Klein, and tapping into the Sydney Sweeney hype more than being deliberately provocative by invoking the semiotics of eugenics,” she said.
But she added that a lack of cultural diversity behind the scenes often amplifies these missteps.
“When creative teams do not include diverse voices, there’s no one to hold a mirror up to internal biases. The best prevention is to ensure you have a diverse set of voices in every department that touches a campaign so these things are caught before they air. This is not to say it’s the responsibility of diverse creatives to make sure this doesn’t happen, all creatives should be aware of how their concepts may land, but having diverse departments is a good starting point.”
Lessons for Brands (and Celebrities)
For brands considering celebrity ambassadors, McElhinney said the Sweeney episode underscores the need for alignment.
“Know the lore of the celebrity you are working with. Who are their genuine fans? What reputation do their fans have among the rest of the culture? What does this person stand for, and is there alignment? Marketers know their own brand codes back to front, so they need to think about celebrities as brands with their own codes. American Eagle plus Sydney Sweeney is already making a strong statement about what ‘Americana’ looks like before the wordplay is even involved.”
The overlap of Americana’s underperformance and the American Eagle controversy raises a broader question: is the cultural baggage from her brand partnerships beginning to overshadow her acting career?
In today’s cancel culture climate, perception moves fast. What might once have been dismissed as “just an ad” can ripple into how audiences, critics, and even Hollywood decision-makers perceive a star’s brand. Sweeney’s acting talent remains undeniable, but her recent experiences show how fragile the balance between celebrity endorsements and artistic credibility has become.
For now, the numbers are hard to ignore: Americana has struggled at the box office, and her most recent campaign sparked outrage without boosting sales. Whether this is a temporary stumble or the start of reputational turbulence will depend on how both Sweeney and the brands she partners with navigate the fallout.
