Sydney Sweeney was asked about that American Eagle ‘good genes’ ad again, and she avoided taking any responsibility for it.
Sweeney drew immense backlash for the ad earlier this year since the ad featured a wordplay on ‘good jeans’ and ‘good genes.’ Netizens thought it was racist and glorified having blue eyes and being white, others thought it catered to the male gaze and was overly sexual.
The Euphoria star didn’t address the backlash at the time, and she’s dodging questions about it in the present.
In a new interview with The Guardian to promote her new film Christy, she argued that she has no control over how people interpret her actions.
“I think what’s interesting is I’m always myself. I’m always just me. But it’s what other people put on me that’s uncontrollable,” she said.
“Like you’re going to write this article… Then people will read it and have their own perception. So I try and be as much of me as possible, but it’s always through other people’s lenses,” the Echo Valley star added.
In a previous interview with GQ, she noted that she wasn’t aware of the backlash over the ad since she was filming the new season of Euphoria at the time.
“It was surreal… it’s not that I didn’t have that feeling, but I wasn’t thinking of it like that. Or like, of any of it. I kind of just put my phone away,” she told the magazine.
“I was filming every day. I’m filming Euphoria, so I’m working 16-hour days and I don’t really bring my phone on set, so I work and then I go home and I go to sleep. So I didn’t really see a lot of it,” she added.
Sydney’s new film Christy follows the personal and professional life of boxer Christy Martin. The movie has joined the top 12 worst ever openings for a film showing on more than 2000 screens, per Box Office Mojo. The film has made a dismal $1.3 million over the weekend.
