We knew the woke Left thought the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad campaign was Nazi propaganda.
But, per usual, MSNBC had to top the grassroots everything-is-offensive Left and essentially call whiteness ugly.
"Whiteness is ugly," says white woman.
I'll assume you've all seen the Sydney Sweeney ads and I'll save your eyes the trouble. Let's see what MSNBC Producer Hannah Holland has to say about this ad campaign.
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.
Oh no! After years of demoting whiteness and calling it evil we're shifting back toward it! It's almost like America is predominantly white!
And what's this? Capitalism? Not in my country!
Don't even get me started on the "conservatism" talk -- as if sexualizing women is now conservative!
Holland doesn't get too far into the weeds with the "whiteness is ugly" theme, which is implied in the headline, though I do believe she ties whiteness together with fascism here.
It isn't just that far-right ideology is proliferating on the fringe; our entire cultural ethos has moved further right, allowing for this sort of content. Young women are being radicalized through so-called clean skin care and healthy eating, internet slang once used exclusively by women-hating incels is mainstream, and people are unabashedly self-identifying as fascist on public platforms.
An advertisement that so many are condemning as a 'eugenics dog whistle' fits into this movement. Sweeney and American Eagle deserve much scrutiny over this, but so does our own crumbling and fractured American culture that made this all possible in the first place.
Yes, we have a 90s Democrat in the White House, which means people have freedom of speech again. This means people can out themselves as literal fascists and then be, uhh, treated like fascists should be -- with disrespect.
And that is somehow bad?
Also, women are "being radicalized" through "healthy eating"????
I'll assume all of these things are what Holland considers whiteness.
Oh, and ugly because they're white.
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