Last week, American Eagle launched an ad campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney dressed in denim and emphasizing her “good genes” or jeans. Some social media users and an MSNBC op-ed criticized the ad, but at least one reporter has pointed out the criticism came largely from “Twitter randos” with no major Democratic politicians weighing in. Sniffing an opportunity, however, Fox News spent 85 minutes covering this ad since Monday. In contrast, the network discussed the ongoing saga related to Jeffrey Epstein for only 3 minutes.
Fox mentioned Sweeney over 4 times more than it mentioned Epstein. CNN, meanwhile, mentioned Epstein over 100 times more than Sweeney, and MSNBC hasn’t mentioned Sweeney at all.
The right-wing discourse related to this ad has been, predictably, absurd. Fox host Jesse Watters pointed to multiple TikTok videos and argued that “liberals saw a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes and thought she was ushering in the Fourth Reich.” Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy crowed that the ad was “a return to hotness” that is “brought to you” by MAGA. And Fox contributor Lisa Boothe claimed that the ad was “about rejecting the Orwellian way of life that was shoved down our throats from four years under Joe Biden.”
This is a great example of how the right-wing meda ecosystem manufactures a non-troversy — they point to isolated and obscure comments made by allegedly left-wing social media users or a single op-ed, then argue that a huge swath of Americans think the same thing. For conservative media, the point is to constantly manufacture an enemy that needs to be fought. This week, the battlefield they chose to fight on was an American Eagle ad.
Great Job Media Matters for America & the Team @ Media Matters for America Source link for sharing this story.
