Are you tired of hearing about the controversy over Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans ad? A remarkable thing about this latest culture-war dust-up is just how much people seem to resent its sheer existence. The whole thing feels, on its face, ginned up and silly. A mall brand decided to advertise its jeans by showing them on a hot blonde starlet, and all of a sudden the outrage mill is generating takes about how the ads symbolize either the death of woke or eugenics dog whistles — really? That’s what we’re doing?

Yet there’s a surprising staying power to the story, in a way that suggests there’s more to it than meets the eye. Maybe it’s because of the ad’s surreal interplay with Sweeney’s blonde bombshell image, revealing how much weight that symbol still carries today and the ideas i

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