Uncensored - Piers Morgan - "Get a LIFE!" Sydney Sweeney Ad: White Supremacy Or 'Ugly Girl Jealousy'?
Aired: 2025-07-30
Duration: 38:51


=== Nazi Dog Whistle Accusations (09:42) ===

[00:00:00]  My genes are blue.
[00:00:01]  Sidney Sweeney has very keen.
[00:00:03]  I was frankly angered.
[00:00:04]  The ad is racist and eugenics coded.
[00:00:07]  The left will call everything Nazism and say everybody's a Nazi except for the actual Nazis.
[00:00:13]  Historically, we have only normalized white people and so we've made white women's, white women's bodies the norm.
[00:00:19]  Why can't you have good genes, Mark?
[00:00:21]  Sidney Sweeney is a sex symbol.
[00:00:23]  She is a young, hot woman.
[00:00:25]  That is all this ad is about.
[00:00:28]  American Eagle's Sidney Sweeney has great jeans campaign has unleashed a Hitlerian hysteria not seen since the U.S. election.
[00:00:35]  In case you'd be living under a rock this week, this is what the fuss is about.
[00:00:40]  Jeans are passed on from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.
[00:00:50]  My genes are blue.
[00:00:51]  Sidney Sweeney has very keen.
[00:01:03]  Sidney Sweeney has buried Keynes.
[00:01:11]  Well, half of the adverse viewers see a cheeky ad with an attractive actress flogging genes.
[00:01:17]  The other half apparently see a subliminal propaganda campaign for eugenics, fascism, and white supremacy with a dash of Nazis thrown in for the mix.
[00:01:27]  Those Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ads are weird, like fascist weird.
[00:01:32]  Did American Eagle just run an ad for eugenics?
[00:01:35]  The attractive white woman with blonde hair, blue eyes is talking about just her, just the genes she gets from American Eagle.
[00:01:41]  You see a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman and think that is an all-American woman?
[00:01:46]  That is the exact problem with this advertisement.
[00:01:49]  Hey, American Eagle.
[00:01:50]  Now do black and brown women.
[00:01:52]  Hey, you want to go to America Eagle?
[00:01:54]  Oh, I can't go in there because I'm black.
[00:01:56]  I think we should just start shaming them instead.
[00:01:59]  You are an embarrassment, Sidney Sweeney.
[00:02:01]  It's not just excitable people on social media who are losing their minds on this one.
[00:02:06]  Even Good Morning America is wondering whether Sydney's great genes may herald the onset of a new Fourth Reich.
[00:02:12]  We begin with the backlash of our new ad campaign featuring actress Sidney Sweeney.
[00:02:16]  Yeah, the ads are for American Eagle and the tagline is Sidney Sweeney has great genes.
[00:02:21]  Now in one ad, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actress talks about genes as in DNA being passed down from her parents.
[00:02:27]  The play on words is being compared to Nazi propaganda with racial undertones.
[00:02:34]  So is Sidney Sweeney the new poster girl for white supremacy or is it all, as one commentator put it, just ugly girl jealousy?
[00:02:43]  Well turning to my panel now, I'm away from my usual studio working on a slight delay.
[00:02:48]  So I begin with a polite request for everyone to take it in turns and allow the audience to enjoy all of your insights.
[00:02:55]  I'm joined by Jedediah Biela, the host of the Jediabila Show, by the conservative influencer Deborah Lee, academic and host of Bet News, Mark Lamont Hill, and the author of Cultural Intelligence for Marketers, Dr. Anastasia Gabriel.
[00:03:13]  Well welcome to all of you.
[00:03:16]  Okay, let me start with you, Dr. Anastasia.
[00:03:19]  What's your problem with this ad?
[00:03:20]  I mean, I just saw Sidney Sweeney looking hot selling jeans.
[00:03:25]  What memo didn't I get?
[00:03:28]  I would love to live in a world where more people would have the privilege to look at this ad and simply see an ad for great genes, but that's not the world that we live in.
[00:03:38]  And we live in the world that is marked with a lot of cultural baggage.
[00:03:41]  So when I saw this ad as a marketer, as somebody who works with agencies and brands on issues of culture and cultural relevance, I was frankly angered.
[00:03:50]  And the reason for that is that the ad is racist and eugenics coded.
[00:03:56]  And I have to be clear that when I say that, I don't mean to talk about the intent of the creators behind this ad, but rather the impact that it has on audiences and particularly on younger audiences.
[00:04:07]  And here we need to remember that the target audience of American Eagle is the most racially and ethnically diverse consumer group in the history of the United States.
[00:04:18]  And somebody who has spent a lot of time studying semiotics and the way that meaning is encoded in various forms of media and cultural artifacts, it becomes very clear to me that when we take apart this particular ad campaign, it marries certain concepts and certain words that carry cultural baggage for people.
[00:04:39]  And if that wasn't enough, we can go back and look to the source material for this particular campaign, which is a Calvin Klein ad from 1980 that uses very explicitly the same kind of rhetoric of, and even more so rather, dramatically, natural selection, survival of the fittest, selective mating, the superiority of dominant groups, etc.
[00:05:06]  And from a perspective of media and cultural studies, when we look at this particular campaign, we can see how meaning travels from the source of inspiration to this particular narrative structure that we see in this ad.
[00:05:18]  And so it is no surprise to me that it was picked up by audiences that reacted in the way that they did.
[00:05:25]  And research shows, even though obviously Gen Z are in themselves a diverse group, they're also generally on average more progressive leaning and of course chronically online.
[00:05:36]  Crazy.
[00:05:37]  You mean crazy?
[00:05:38]  Anastasia.
[00:05:39]  Anastasia, we haven't had you on our sensor before.
[00:05:44]  I didn't really understand a word of what you've just said.
[00:05:48]  Are you this much fun at parties or do you have a different perspective?
[00:05:52]  I would love it if you weren't disrespectful to me.
[00:05:54]  It's a pleasure to join you today and I look forward to exchanging opinions.
[00:05:58]  I would love to clarify any points that you might have found confusing.
[00:06:02]  Anastasia.
[00:06:05]  Deborah Lee.
[00:06:06]  Let me bring Deborah Lee in.
[00:06:08]  This is a terrible example of racist white supremacy, etc.
[00:06:14]  I sort of lost my thread halfway through it, but this is apparently the worst ad ever seen.
[00:06:19]  I mean, this is the Nazis reborn.
[00:06:24]  That is just crazy to me.
[00:06:26]  And for people to have this reaction to this ad, when I first saw this ad, this is giving a Super Bowl, okay?
[00:06:31]  This is shot very well.
[00:06:32]  This is very creative for an ad agency.
[00:06:34]  I don't know where that information is coming from, that they're the most diverse group and their clientele is most diverse in the entire world, the entire country.
[00:06:41]  But if that were the case, then this would be a great ad to appeal to a new base.
[00:06:44]  Heterosexual, straight men who see a hot woman and they think, wow, that's great.
[00:06:48]  I want to support this company.
[00:06:50]  And for the record, Sidney Sweeney is a brunette.
[00:06:52]  She has brown hair.
[00:06:53]  So everybody's saying she's an origin, blonde hair, blue eyes.
[00:06:56]  It's not true.
[00:06:57]  Look at her roots.
[00:06:57]  Look at her eyebrows.
[00:06:58]  It takes five seconds to do a Google search of Sidney Sweeney's natural hair color.
[00:07:02]  And while I have my own opinions about this ad, I don't really have the palette for sexual ads as a traditional conservative.
[00:07:07]  I think if you have an issue with this and you're saying that this is a Nazi dog whistle as a Jewish woman, when the Nazis created ads in their propaganda, it was not using hot women who are traditionally hot to try and attract people to become Nazis.
[00:07:19]  It was saying that the Jews are vermin, that we're trying to take over the world.
[00:07:22]  To try and compare the two is outrageous because the left will call everything Nazism and say everybody's a Nazi except for the actual Nazis chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free, reiterating the same talking points that we've seen since World War II.
[00:07:34]  So I just really don't understand where any of this information or reaction is coming from.
[00:07:38]  People have way too much time on their hands.
[00:07:40]  Get a job, get a life.
[00:07:42]  Stop being triggered by thin, white, hot women.
[00:07:44]  Just let it be.
[00:07:45]  Enjoy.
[00:07:45]  You guys had Lizzo in an ad when she was 400 pounds modeling for Calvin Klein jeans.
[00:07:50]  She's since lost weight because she even realized that being that size is not healthy for any individual.
[00:07:54]  And it's clearly just targeted towards happy, straight white women.
[00:07:57]  They don't want to have these people in ads.
[00:07:58]  We've had every single TV show, every single advertisement has somebody who's been put in simply for being gay in the last couple of years.
[00:08:04]  That's the only reason that they've been put into the storyline.
[00:08:07]  And so now we just have what we would deem normal.
[00:08:09]  And the left is trying to brand this as abnormal.
[00:08:11]  It's not taking.
[00:08:12]  And the people that are trying to push this is the reason that the Democratic Party is continuing to fail in popularity.
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[00:09:26]  Okay, Martin Monhill, let's look at an earlier American Eagle ad, which was in the middle of the whole Me Too campaign and stuff.
[00:09:36]  Do you have any problem with the lady on the left there?
[00:09:40]  Do I have a problem with her?

=== Incogni Privacy Solution (10:15) ===

[00:09:42]  No, I don't have a problem with her.
[00:09:43]  Yeah.
[00:09:44]  I don't have a problem with her.
[00:09:45]  You're not offended by that image.
[00:09:47]  I'm not.
[00:09:48]  Fascinating.
[00:09:51]  You do have a problem with the woman on the right.
[00:09:52]  No, Hold on.
[00:09:54]  Two things.
[00:09:54]  One, you specifically said, let's not interrupt each other.
[00:09:56]  And I haven't been able to articulate one sentence yet.
[00:09:59]  And I've been interrupted twice.
[00:10:00]  So let's follow your own rules.
[00:10:02]  I'm not offended by the woman on the left.
[00:10:05]  Let me complete the sentence.
[00:10:06]  I am not offended by the woman on the left, nor am I offended by the woman on the right.
[00:10:11]  The aha that you're going for isn't there because I'm saying I am not offended by either women.
[00:10:16]  Please, I'm asking respectfully.
[00:10:18]  Allow me to finish a thought.
[00:10:19]  Two people have spoken uninterrupted for three minutes.
[00:10:21]  I haven't gotten 10 seconds out.
[00:10:23]  What I'm saying is, the problem is not either woman.
[00:10:27]  The problem is how we're narrating the commercial.
[00:10:31]  That's what people are concerned about.
[00:10:32]  Several things have been said that I'd like to respond to in direct response to what you're asking me, Piers.
[00:10:37]  The first thing, and I'm glad the last woman who spoke mentioned that she's Jewish because I think that's really important.
[00:10:42]  Historically, there have been lots of anti-Semitic images, narratives, tropes that are used that non-Jews don't see.
[00:10:51]  And many times someone will say, oh, wait a minute, they showed that person playing into the cabal narrative.
[00:10:58]  They showed this person as a rodent, or they showed this person with changing their name to this or that.
[00:11:03]  And the average person may not intend to be anti-Semitic, although some people are anti-Semitic, but it's still there and Jews recognize it.
[00:11:10]  So I don't want to presume that because a white person doesn't see it, that that means that it can't be racist.
[00:11:17]  Or if a black person doesn't see it, you know what I'm saying?
[00:11:19]  We have to think about those on all levels from multiple audiences.
[00:11:22]  You used the word normal and talked about it in the context of this white woman.
[00:11:26]  White women are normal, but so are other people.
[00:11:29]  The problem is, historically, we have only normalized white people.
[00:11:33]  And so we've made white women's, white women's bodies, white male bodies, the norm.
[00:11:38]  And we've made everything else less human, less beautiful, less real.
[00:11:41]  And so when we say good genes are the ones that...
[00:11:44]  What's a load of crap?
[00:11:45]  Hold on, I'm sorry, Mark.
[00:11:48]  If I may jump in on my own show, what a load of crap.
[00:11:52]  I saw Beyonce do a genes ad.
[00:11:54]  Everybody drooled over it.
[00:11:56]  I loved it.
[00:11:57]  Thought she looked hot when she did.
[00:11:59]  Right?
[00:11:59]  I mean, what are you talking about, man?
[00:12:01]  This is...
[00:12:02]  Let me ask you a straight question.
[00:12:04]  Let me ask you a straight question.
[00:12:05]  Does Sidney Sweeney, does Swidney, does Sidney Sweeney have bad genes?
[00:12:10]  Yes or no?
[00:12:11]  No.
[00:12:12]  I don't think she has bad genes.
[00:12:13]  Does she have good genes?
[00:12:15]  Does she have good genes?
[00:12:17]  No.
[00:12:18]  Again, you're trying for these gotchas if you don't.
[00:12:20]  She doesn't have good or bad genes.
[00:12:23]  The whole point is to argue that good and bad genes itself is a bad idea.
[00:12:27]  It's a racist gene.
[00:12:27]  Why can't you have good genes, Mark?
[00:12:34]  All right, I'm going to respond and I'm going to hope that you don't interrupt me as I answer.
[00:12:38]  Okay?
[00:12:38]  Because again, no one else has been interrupted except the people who disagree with you.
[00:12:42]  What I'm saying is the word pressure.
[00:12:45]  Listen, listen, listen.
[00:12:46]  The word eugenics literally means good genes.
[00:12:48]  It literally means that etymologically.
[00:12:50]  The point here is to judge human beings based on their genes and to decide that you have good genes and you have bad genes isn't in and of itself a racist project.
[00:12:58]  That's the point.
[00:12:59]  So no, it's not that I think that I have good genes and you can't say no one else has good genes.
[00:13:03]  I'm saying let's get rid of the good genes narrative, particularly when it's based on hair and eyes and body type.
[00:13:08]  Why?
[00:13:09]  Because those things are racially coded.
[00:13:12]  In other words, if I say that straight hair is good genes or blonde hair is good genes, and no, I'm not after watching an ad googling someone to figure out their natural roots.
[00:13:19]  You'd be shocked to know how many people don't do that.
[00:13:21]  If I'm doing these things and I see blue, your eye color and your hair as a sign of your good genes, then that means someone who has a different hair or eye color doesn't have good genes.
[00:13:29]  And if you, the last thing I'll say is if you look historically at ads, it doesn't though, does it?
[00:13:35]  Calm down.
[00:13:36]  Calm down.
[00:13:37]  It doesn't actually mean that.
[00:13:38]  No, Hang on.
[00:13:39]  Hang on.
[00:13:40]  No, no, I will speak on my own show.
[00:13:42]  So just calm down.
[00:13:44]  I'm asking you not to be condescending.
[00:13:45]  Stop being so precious.
[00:13:47]  My instruction about shouting was between the three four of you, not me.
[00:13:51]  It's my show.
[00:13:52]  I do what I like.
[00:13:53]  I don't care if you're not.
[00:13:55]  If you interrupt me in the first minute, it's bad form.
[00:13:57]  I'm saying that if you let the guests who agreed with you talk for three minutes, then don't allow me to talk for more than one second.
[00:14:02]  You literally didn't have to finish the person.
[00:14:04]  You have literally done more talking than all three other guests put together.
[00:14:10]  Multiple two or three.
[00:14:12]  So that's not true.
[00:14:14]  But my issue with your interrupting point was at the first 10 seconds.
[00:14:18]  My point was just don't interrupt me in the first 10 seconds.
[00:14:20]  So now it's irrelevant.
[00:14:23]  Can you calm down?
[00:14:24]  I'm not angry.
[00:14:25]  I'm not angry.
[00:14:26]  I'm talking over you.
[00:14:28]  Right.
[00:14:28]  Can I just say that?
[00:14:29]  I have blue eyes.
[00:14:30]  Right.
[00:14:31]  I also have good genes, particularly on my mother's side, because my skin is surprisingly good for a personal mage, because my mother's side all had good skin.
[00:14:39]  You got a problem with that?
[00:14:44]  Mark?
[00:14:45]  Is that for me?
[00:14:46]  You got a problem with that?
[00:14:47]  Yes.
[00:14:48]  If I say I've got good genes from my mother, because I have good skin and I've got blue eyes, so what?
[00:14:55]  So what color eyes are, what color eyes are bad genes?
[00:14:58]  If someone has bad genes, what would their hair or skin look like?
[00:15:00]  I don't think any are bad.
[00:15:01]  I didn't see anybody from American Eagle saying that anybody else has anything.
[00:15:05]  No one said anything.
[00:15:07]  Just to be clear, hang on, hang on, hang on.
[00:15:10]  Nobody from American Eagle was making any comparison.
[00:15:13]  Nobody said somebody else's eye color or skin color was wrong or bad or anything negative.
[00:15:21]  All they said in an amusing pun is that Sidney Sweeney has good genes and is wearing great genes.
[00:15:29]  That's it.
[00:15:30]  There was no negative about anybody else.
[00:15:33]  And here's why I disagree with that.
[00:15:35]  Because if I were to stand on here and say, oh, she's from a good background, she's Gentile, then we would all say, well, wait a minute.
[00:15:41]  I didn't compare her to anybody else.
[00:15:42]  No, by saying that Gentile is the good background, I would be implicitly saying that the others are not.
[00:15:47]  If I say I have a good body, I'm skinny, then I'm saying the other bodies are not good.
[00:15:52]  It's an implicit comparison, but it's not out of context.
[00:15:54]  Historically, in this country and in the West, we've always said that white bodies are more beautiful.
[00:15:58]  So it's not like we're coming out of nowhere here.
[00:16:00]  This is at a Zeus's head.
[00:16:01]  We're starting from a place where we've already presumed white.
[00:16:04]  We have spent the last 10 years.
[00:16:06]  All right, gender diet.
[00:16:08]  The last 10 years, if you look at all of the marketing campaigns, all of how many segments on television about the elevation of obesity?
[00:16:16]  You see people who are massive.
[00:16:18]  Now we're saying it's a good thing, right?
[00:16:20]  It's great.
[00:16:20]  Let's celebrate everyone who's unhealthy and obese.
[00:16:24]  If this ad was an African-American, if this ad was a Hispanic girl, no one would be saying a peep.
[00:16:30]  Frankly, I think if this ad was a white girl like me with brown hair, brown eyes, I got a little Spanish in me, I got a little Italian in me, I'm Sicilian, I got some African in me.
[00:16:39]  I don't think anyone would be saying anything either.
[00:16:41]  This is utterly ridiculous.
[00:16:42]  The only people who are offended by this ad are people who choose to be offended by everything.
[00:16:48]  Either you choose to see racism in everything or you choose to see sexism or misogyny.
[00:16:53]  I noticed that a whole lot of women online were mad about this ad because they were jealous.
[00:16:57]  It was so obvious.
[00:16:58]  Now they're saying that this woman is against the body positivity campaign because she's skinny.
[00:17:04]  So let's just say the truth.
[00:17:05]  Sidney Sweeney is a sex symbol.
[00:17:07]  She is a young, hot woman.
[00:17:09]  She is objectively attractive.
[00:17:11]  That is all this ad was about.
[00:17:13]  Now, why has the stock skyrocketed for this company?
[00:17:16]  The reason this ad has done so well is yes, because it creates controversy and we all talk about it and we debate.
[00:17:21]  And American Eagle is very smart and they knew that, but also because there is a growing segment of the population just like me that is saying that it's so tired of walking on eggshells to cater to people like Mark's sensitivities.
[00:17:33]  Frankly, I don't care if you're offended.
[00:17:35]  You can put an ad out and offend this person over here or that person over there.
[00:17:39]  Everyone is always going to get offended by something.
[00:17:41]  Who cares?
[00:17:42]  Here's the bottom line.
[00:17:43]  Stop getting so offended.
[00:17:44]  If you see everything through the lens of race, that's your problem.
[00:17:47]  That's not Sidney Sweeney's problem.
[00:17:49]  That's not American Eagle's problem.
[00:17:50]  If you see everything through the lens of misogyny, it's the same conversation over and over again.
[00:17:55]  Yeah, you know what?
[00:17:56]  I agree.
[00:17:59]  Hang on, don't all talk at once.
[00:18:01]  Don't all talk at once.
[00:18:02]  No, I'm going to come to Anastasia.
[00:18:03]  Anastasia, here's the problem.
[00:18:05]  The Democrats have just polled at record loads, right?
[00:18:08]  They are incredibly unpopular.
[00:18:11]  And I can tell you one of the reasons why.
[00:18:13]  It's things like this.
[00:18:15]  The reason Donald Trump got re-elected is partly the economy, partly immigration, but also partly the culture wars, which the liberal left, the woke left, tried so dementedly to fuel and fire for so many years, behaving like a bunch of insane fascists.
[00:18:35]  And it comes down to stuff like this: where most people watch this ad and see it for what it is: a harmless ad with a hot actress selling jeans.
[00:18:44]  But in the prism of the woke left, which I assume you would identify as, but correct me if I'm wrong, you look at it and see it as an obvious example of Nazism, eugenics, white supremacy, and you hate it and despise it.
[00:18:59]  And anyone who likes it must be canceled.
[00:19:02]  And that's the problem with the woke left.
[00:19:05]  That's why nobody wants to vote for anyone who identifies with the woke left.
[00:19:09]  That's why Trump won.
[00:19:11]  And no one on the left in the woke left seems to understand that it's exactly this kind of thing that is the reason that nobody wants to vote for you.
[00:19:20]  Over to you.
[00:19:23]  Yeah, I hear where you're coming from.
[00:19:25]  And I think that kind of strong narratives between, you know, woke left, kind of hijacking everything is part of a narrative of labeling people and not allowing nuance and context of what is actually happening here.
[00:19:38]  So I'm not really interested in being inflammatory around the subject.
[00:19:42]  Neither do I think that this particular campaign is a propaganda campaign for eugenics.
[00:19:47]  But I am interested in thinking about the power of media and representation in our culture and what it means for somebody who engages with this ad who doesn't look like me.

=== Size Zero Marketing Codes (15:10) ===

[00:19:57]  And as a marketer, I know that actually it is American Eagle's problem that that is a reaction of their customer base, which is younger people and particularly younger girls.
[00:20:09]  And as a marketer, I know it's a responsibility of the brand to understand their audience, to understand their worldview, the way that they form their associations and connect with them, speak to them in a way that resonates.
[00:20:22]  So it's absolutely...
[00:20:22]  Well, let me respond to that.
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[00:21:24]  Let me respond to that, because from a marketing point of view, American Eagle several years ago launched a lingerie campaign featuring female models with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
[00:21:36]  One model was pictured wearing a colostomy bag, another was photographed with her arm in crutches, one woman posed in her wheelchair, and it did nothing for sales.
[00:21:45]  So from a marketing point of view, it didn't work.
[00:21:48]  Now you have a hot woman who is none of those things, who is just a hot woman, like the old advertising used to use all the time, along with hot men.
[00:21:59]  I remember the Calvin Klein gene ads with men, topless, selling buckets of jeans.
[00:22:04]  And guess what?
[00:22:05]  Sales are up 30%.
[00:22:07]  So you as a marketer should say, well done, American Eagle.
[00:22:11]  You've stopped being ridiculously woke, you know, trying to sell to very small groups of people and ignoring the mass majority who are going to buy your jeans.
[00:22:21]  And now you've gone route one using sex and femininity to sell jeans.
[00:22:26]  And by the way, they don't care if she's white or black or anything else.
[00:22:31]  They just care that she's hot.
[00:22:33]  And Beyonce sold jeans.
[00:22:35]  That was a great campaign.
[00:22:36]  That worked really well because she's a hot black woman.
[00:22:38]  And the moment you try and read in all this other stuff, I mean, you say you don't want to be inflammatory.
[00:22:44]  You literally said it was one of the most outrageously racist marketing campaigns ever.
[00:22:50]  What could be more inflammatory than that?
[00:22:52]  Well, let me correct you, Piers.
[00:22:53]  I said that I've seen in recent years.
[00:22:55]  I'm very careful with my words.
[00:22:57]  So I did not paint this picture of this being a racist ad, you know, ever.
[00:23:02]  But I do think, and I think I've explained the way that representation works and the way that I see it working within this ad.
[00:23:08]  Now, I would love to see the evidence for the 30% sales spike.
[00:23:12]  I personally have not seen it.
[00:23:13]  Neither I have seen, you know, anyone in the marketing community share it.
[00:23:16]  So I would love to see it and the source for that.
[00:23:20]  However, there is a question of ethics and there is a question of ethical guardrails in marketing.
[00:23:27]  I understand that in 2020 or whenever, brands were responding to the cultural moment of post-2020 impulse to increase representation, diversity, et cetera.
[00:23:38]  And perhaps those campaigns were not commercially successful.
[00:23:42]  Now, do I think that commercial outcomes justify any kind of campaign that implies anything out there just because it drives sales?
[00:23:51]  Well, no, as a marketer, I am interested in driving business results, but also thinking about the ethics of representation and what kind of messages are young girls and children, frankly, consuming when they log on to their Instagram or TikTok and keep swiping.
[00:24:07]  And again, I said, I take a more balanced approach to this.
[00:24:10]  I do not think it was intentional propaganda, as I have already said, but I do think that there are some codes within this marketing media communications, which is a unit of media, that are concerning in the way that they are implying that good gray genes are represented by someone like Sweeney.
[00:24:31]  Now, other co-panelists mentioned if another particular model of other kind of background or maybe multiple models were featured, there's likely would not be an uproar.
[00:24:43]  And that is because that kind of messaging carries cultural baggage, as I've mentioned, that is reflective of the history of racism in this country.
[00:24:53]  And the way that decision was made.
[00:24:55]  Because she's hang on, hang on, hang on.
[00:24:57]  Because she's white, hang on, hang on, because she's white and got blue eyes.
[00:25:02]  Is that why?
[00:25:04]  Because the verbal cues surrounding this terminology that carries a lot of cultural weight, such as offspring, gray genes, are paired with these other signifiers that are very specific.
[00:25:17]  Blue, blue eyes, blonde skin, etc.
[00:25:21]  And you have to understand that this is just a reality of how our brains work.
[00:25:25]  We move through life and we develop these conceptual and mental maps.
[00:25:28]  So you don't like it because she's white and got blue eyes.
[00:25:30]  All right.
[00:25:31]  That's not the right thing.
[00:25:31]  Deborah Lee.
[00:25:32]  Deborah Lee, intellectual vault.
[00:25:35]  Hang on, hang on.
[00:25:36]  We're going to go in the right order.
[00:25:38]  I'm going to ask Deborah Lee.
[00:25:39]  Deborah Lee, I mean, ultimately we got to the real problem.
[00:25:42]  She's white and got blue eyes.
[00:25:44]  Since when was that a crime to use a white, blue-eyed woman who's hot and an actress to sell products?
[00:25:51]  Happens all the time, as it does with black actresses, all the time.
[00:25:57]  I'd say somewhere in the last five to six years, the oldest marketing ploy from the beginning of time is sex sales.
[00:26:04]  Every single person knows that.
[00:26:05]  And the problem with the left and everybody who's offended by this is they extrapolate.
[00:26:09]  It's not just this situation.
[00:26:10]  They hear somebody say, I love being thin.
[00:26:12]  And they go, oh, so you hate fat people?
[00:26:15]  Sidney Sweeney is saying she has good genes, which there's a lot that goes into having good genes we don't know about.
[00:26:19]  Maybe she doesn't have any history of family illness.
[00:26:21]  Maybe she has very low visceral fat.
[00:26:23]  Like you said, Pierce, great skin, didn't need braces.
[00:26:25]  It's much more than just having blonde hair and blue eyes, okay?
[00:26:29]  But to say that Sidney Sweeney has good genes means now we're saying that all these other people don't have good genes.
[00:26:34]  Relax.
[00:26:35]  Why do you have to always get offended by every single thing?
[00:26:37]  Nobody's saying that.
[00:26:38]  And let's just go back to, what was it, Abercrombie that had the shirtless models outside of all of their offices?
[00:26:44]  It's the same people that are offended by the Sidney Sweeney ad that were dreaming and praying to end up with one of those shirtless models.
[00:26:50]  Society has progressed too far in the sense where now every single person to find value.
[00:26:57]  Okay, Marlon Monhill.
[00:26:59]  I remember a model called Tess Holiday being the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.
[00:27:04]  She was 305 pounds and five foot two.
[00:27:08]  And the whole piece was about how incredibly empowering this was and what an example of body positivity it was.
[00:27:16]  When in fact, it was an unbelievably dangerous promotion of morbid obesity.
[00:27:22]  That's what it was.
[00:27:23]  Because if you're 305 pounds or five foot two, you are dangerously fat and you are more likely than not to die from the repercussions of being that size.
[00:27:33]  And yet the woke left went, look at this, isn't this fantastic?
[00:27:38]  And yet here you have a model who's not super slim, Sidney Sweeney.
[00:27:43]  She's got a very rounded, normal body, right?
[00:27:47]  She's not like a stick insex supermodel.
[00:27:50]  And she looks hot and she's wearing jeans and she happens to be white and happens to have blue eyes.
[00:27:56]  To try and turn this into a racial thing or to compare it to the Nazis, even by woke standards, seems to me ridiculous.
[00:28:07]  Okay.
[00:28:08]  First, just for clarity, Sidney Sweeney is a size zero.
[00:28:12]  So even when we say that someone is a normal size, that suggests that the average person is a size zero.
[00:28:20]  The average person, the average woman in this country is not.
[00:28:22]  So at all moments when we make these observations that seem neutral, we're actually assigning a value.
[00:28:28]  So if I am a size eight as a woman and you just said on national TV as the most important, coolest, most handsome host in the history of television, if you say that it's normal to be a size zero, then yeah, when I'm a size eight, now I feel like something's wrong with my body.
[00:28:43]  Similarly.
[00:28:44]  So she doesn't look normal to you, Sidney Sweeney.
[00:28:49]  She looks normal.
[00:28:50]  38 seconds, by the way, for interruption.
[00:28:52]  Great.
[00:28:53]  You're on the new record.
[00:28:55]  I think she looks normal.
[00:28:56]  You're really touchy today.
[00:28:58]  I'm just teasing you, Piers.
[00:29:00]  I'm just very, very upset about the world, you know, and I need a hug from you and you're not in the studio with me.
[00:29:08]  Well, there are more important things to be worried about than Sidney Bloody Sweeney.
[00:29:11]  Trust me.
[00:29:12]  Honestly.
[00:29:14]  There is war raging around the world.
[00:29:16]  There is family.
[00:29:17]  Right.
[00:29:18]  And you're getting your family.
[00:29:20]  And you're getting your nick is in a massive twist about Sidney Sydney.
[00:29:23]  That's actually where I'm going.
[00:29:24]  Peters, that's actually where I'm going, right?
[00:29:26]  I mean, this conversation started with...
[00:29:27]  How'd you know her dress size, but not her hair color?
[00:29:30]  Because I just Googled it when he said it, and it comes up because I just typed Sidney Sweeney dress size and it says Sidney Sweeney typically wears a size 23, which is equivalent to US size zero.
[00:29:39]  I looked it up to make an argument while he was talking.
[00:29:42]  Google is amazing in that way.
[00:29:43]  I had no desire to do it with the ad because it wasn't my point.
[00:29:47]  As a scholar, my point was to see how the audience receives something, not how I at a meta level can look.
[00:29:52]  She's not a size zero, by the way.
[00:29:55]  She's definitely not.
[00:29:57]  She's not a size zero.
[00:29:58]  She is not a size zero.
[00:30:00]  Okay, so now I'd like to respond to the actual point.
[00:30:04]  I concede.
[00:30:05]  Whatever size she is, my point is to say any woman has a normal size.
[00:30:09]  It assigns a value.
[00:30:10]  And I'm not saying you're right or wrong about your value.
[00:30:11]  I'm saying we're always articulating values when we say things.
[00:30:14]  Putting a 300-pound woman on a cover is not in and of itself a problem.
[00:30:20]  If I put a 300-pound woman on a cover and say, that's the healthy body, I'm implicitly saying that other bodies are not.
[00:30:26]  And to your point, I think that might be problematic.
[00:30:28]  At the beginning of this conversation, Deborah, I think your name is Deborah.
[00:30:31]  Forgive me if I got your name wrong.
[00:30:33]  I think you mentioned the river to the sea, right?
[00:30:36]  The river to the sea is not in and of itself, those words for me are not genocidal.
[00:30:41]  I know they're not genocidal, but to you, you hear it differently.
[00:30:45]  Why?
[00:30:45]  Because you're looking at history.
[00:30:47]  You're looking at context.
[00:30:48]  You're looking at intent.
[00:30:50]  You're looking at action.
[00:30:51]  And you're making a different judgment.
[00:30:53]  Your judgment's wrong.
[00:30:54]  That statement is absolutely not.
[00:30:56]  Gaza needs to be free.
[00:30:57]  No, it's not.
[00:30:57]  It comes from the literal charge.
[00:31:01]  I'm not genocide all Jews.
[00:31:02]  No, I'm not looking at context.
[00:31:04]  I'm looking at the literal Hamas charter and what these people are doing.
[00:31:07]  That will be context.
[00:31:08]  Deborah.
[00:31:08]  Okay.
[00:31:08]  Again, allow me to finish.
[00:31:09]  I never interrupted you.
[00:31:10]  The Hamas charter would be context.
[00:31:12]  That's my point.
[00:31:14]  You're not looking just at the words.
[00:31:15]  You're looking at other pieces of evidence.
[00:31:17]  That's called context.
[00:31:18]  You're literally making my point.
[00:31:19]  My point to you is...
[00:31:20]  Words have meaning.
[00:31:21]  Words do have meaning.
[00:31:22]  Yes, and so do, and so do, and so do, listen to me.
[00:31:27]  Words do have meaning.
[00:31:28]  And the meaning isn't just about literal decoding.
[00:31:31]  It's also about the meanings that are encoded into words.
[00:31:34]  It's about the history.
[00:31:35]  It's about other factors.
[00:31:37]  And I'm telling you, the same way you're telling me as a Jewish person, there are certain words, certain images, certain tropes that impact you because of the history of anti-Semitism.
[00:31:45]  I'm telling you that the same history of white supremacy that makes anti-Semitism so ugly also makes anti-black racism so ugly.
[00:31:52]  I didn't tell you I was offended by this argument.
[00:31:54]  You keep saying, you say, get a job and stop being offended.
[00:31:56]  I think we all have jobs here.
[00:31:57]  And I don't think any of us are offended per se.
[00:31:59]  I wasn't speaking just to you.
[00:32:01]  I was speaking to the people offended by this.
[00:32:03]  If you have time to sit and make TikTok videos complaining about a woman in an ad, you probably don't have bigger things to care about.
[00:32:09]  Like you said, there's much bigger problems.
[00:32:11]  I agree.
[00:32:14]  Let me bring in Jediah for the final word on this.
[00:32:17]  It seems to me, you know, if I honestly, if I was running a marketing campaign for a big company now involved in, I don't know, leisure or beauty or fashion, whatever, I would just be deliberately goading the woke left now in a smart, funny way.
[00:32:31]  I would just do it.
[00:32:33]  I would do it all the time.
[00:32:35]  I would let them throw all their toys out of the stroller and then just increase sales and just laugh my head off because this censorious puritanical bullshit is over.
[00:32:46]  I've written a book called Woke is Dead, which is coming out in October.
[00:32:50]  I think it'll be a massive bestseller because you know what?
[00:32:53]  People are sick of it.
[00:32:55]  They are sick of being told what they can laugh at, what they can admire.
[00:33:00]  They're sick of being told they can't look at a beautiful white woman without being accused of being a Nazi.
[00:33:05]  It's ridiculous.
[00:33:07]  You are 100% correct.
[00:33:09]  And every company should do that because there is a group of woke leftists who are outraged by just about everything that sit on the sidelines and they just wait.
[00:33:18]  They wait for an opportunity and then they jump and they go completely insane.
[00:33:22]  And the vast majority of the country does not feel that way.
[00:33:25]  The vast majority of the country does not see everything through a lens of how they can be offended.
[00:33:29]  They looked at the ad, they saw a young hawk girl.
[00:33:31]  They said, oh, she does have good genes.
[00:33:32]  They laughed about it.
[00:33:33]  They went and had a day.
[00:33:34]  They went and had a normal day.
[00:33:36]  They didn't get all the plans sit inside.
[00:33:39]  And the bottom line is it's so interesting to me because these people think they're, somehow these woke leftists think they're winning.
[00:33:45]  They think that by getting all riled up, they are winning the game and they don't realize that they're constantly.
[00:33:50]  You know the irony.
[00:33:51]  You know the irony, Jenadiah?
[00:33:53]  Here's the irony.
[00:33:55]  The irony is in their attempt to portray everybody as white supremacists.
[00:34:01]  The woke left have an inbuilt superiority complex.
[00:34:05]  They think they are better and superior to everybody else, right?
[00:34:10]  And it doesn't matter whether the woke left or white, black, whatever.
[00:34:13]  They have an inbuilt spirit.
[00:34:15]  And it is, and it is, now I'm afraid it doesn't work because we've now seen Donald Trump get re-elected by defying everything they stood for.
[00:34:23]  But not only that, Pierce, what's important to note is that the people who created this ad were not creating a racist ad.
[00:34:30]  But the people who saw racism and eugenics and Nazism in this ad, maybe they should self-examine.
[00:34:36]  Why do they see everything through the lens of race?
[00:34:38]  Why are they outraged by this ad with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl?
[00:34:42]  But if you put, you know, a black girl, if you put a Spanish girl, there would be no outrage.
[00:34:47]  Why is everything that they see?
[00:34:53]  No one in the history of the West has ever argued that black people have superior genes.
[00:34:56]  The Enlightenment era was built on the people.
[00:34:58]  People have been arguing.
[00:34:59]  White people have superior genes.
[00:35:00]  Mark, people have been saying, the idea that white people have superior bodies.
[00:35:04]  Every single piece of aesthetics about the fact that it's a psychology.
[00:35:07]  Every piece of aesthetic.

=== White Superiority History (03:43) ===

[00:35:08]  What you're saying is untrue.
[00:35:10]  There has been a massive, hold on a second.
[00:35:11]  There has been a massive battle in this country about obesity for the longest time.
[00:35:16]  You now have the condemnation of thin people.
[00:35:18]  You have the elevation of obese people.
[00:35:20]  You have campaigns, Cosmopolitan Magazine, magazines across the country saying fat is healthy.
[00:35:26]  Fat is the new skinny.
[00:35:28]  All the time.
[00:35:29]  No one says a peep.
[00:35:30]  People in your camp do not say a peep about that because it's not a list of things that outrages them.
[00:35:36]  This annoys all the right people.
[00:35:38]  This is a skinny, a thin woman.
[00:35:40]  It annoys me.
[00:35:41]  I'm not talking about skinny.
[00:35:42]  Man, ma'am, just hear me out.
[00:35:43]  I'm not talking about.
[00:35:44]  It's a saved conversation, Mark.
[00:35:46]  No, you just happened to be outraged about something different today.
[00:35:49]  Today, it's about race and eugenics.
[00:35:51]  Tomorrow, it's about obesity.
[00:35:53]  There's always something for the public left to be outraged about because they're always offended.
[00:35:57]  They've always gotten more families in a bunch because they're so dawn-sensitive about everything.
[00:36:01]  They are not representative of the public.
[00:36:05]  Last word to you, Mark Lamont.
[00:36:06]  Otherwise, you'll be supporting me.
[00:36:08]  I'm not outraged.
[00:36:09]  Number one, and number two, I point out a history of white supremacist logics and cultures that show that white lives, white bodies, white experiences are better.
[00:36:18]  And you pointed to the recent influx.
[00:36:22]  Please let me finish.
[00:36:23]  You pointed to the influx of fat people on ads as a piece of counter evidence.
[00:36:27]  I'm not disputing your argument about fat people.
[00:36:29]  I'm not disputing your argument about skinny people.
[00:36:31]  All I'm saying is that...
[00:36:34]  I know what you're saying.
[00:36:34]  You said it.
[00:36:35]  I'm saying, now let me say it.
[00:36:36]  I'm saying that there's a history of white people being superior in terms of how we understand them in this country.
[00:36:41]  So you're only mad at Sydney's way.
[00:36:46]  Let me ask you this question.
[00:36:46]  Let me ask her the question.
[00:36:49]  If a group of people had said, hey, I believe that this ad is anti-Semitic, would you have said, similarly, get over yourself, stop fighting anti-Semitism everywhere?
[00:36:56]  Would you have said that?
[00:36:57]  Yes.
[00:36:58]  And I have to say that.
[00:36:59]  I would say get over yourself.
[00:37:02]  100% I would have done.
[00:37:04]  Would you say, 100% I would have done?
[00:37:07]  We've got to leave it there.
[00:37:08]  I don't think about you.
[00:37:10]  Piers, I think you're consistent and wrong with all the issues.
[00:37:12]  I think you're consistent.
[00:37:13]  Are you wrong all the time, but you're consistent?
[00:37:15]  So I was asking, I was only asking her.
[00:37:16]  Piers, can I write the forward to that book, please?
[00:37:20]  No, but you can buy a copy.
[00:37:24]  You might learn something.
[00:37:25]  You might learn something.
[00:37:27]  I mean, I've never seen anyone who's been more outraged for half an hour and then ended up saying, by the way, I'm not remotely upset about this.
[00:37:34]  I've never seen a more engaging me.
[00:37:40]  I wasn't upset about the ad.
[00:37:41]  I'm actually fine with the ad.
[00:37:43]  You know, read Woke is Dead.
[00:37:46]  Read Woke is Dead, and you will be upset about the ad.
[00:37:49]  You're not criticizing the ad.
[00:37:50]  You will be a better person.
[00:37:52]  You will be a better person for reading Woke is Dead.
[00:37:55]  Not genetically.
[00:37:56]  You will be a better person for reading except for the progressive project.
[00:37:59]  I will show you the promised land of a woke-free life.
[00:38:03]  And trust me, it is more fun out there.
[00:38:05]  Right, we've got to leave it there.
[00:38:06]  I don't know where you've got.
[00:38:07]  You guys can read except for progressive politics so you can find out the truth about the genocide.
[00:38:12]  Okay.
[00:38:13]  Good plug.
[00:38:14]  Thank you very much.
[00:38:15]  On Gaza, we probably agree about a lot of it.
[00:38:17]  Thank you.
[00:38:18]  Thank you all very much.
[00:38:19]  I've been on this show 50 times.
[00:38:21]  Thank you.
[00:38:23]  Free them all.
[00:38:23]  You're allowed to.
[00:38:24]  It's fine.
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