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The recent Sydney Sweeney ad for American Eagle jeans was rather good and has proved popular.

Sweeney did a good job and looked great in it. Now, there has been backlash and the divisive and hateful culture that is shaping us all has determined that the ad was racist, promoting white power and standards of beauty.

How one can deduce that from the ad is perplexing. So the ad merited a second look—what was all the hue and cry about? Sure, it was a clever play on words, but to censure it as a racial dog whistle and lay into young Sydney Sweeney is preposterous. 

We need to come together and get along, and respect individuality and diversity in all its forms. There is nothing wrong with people being proud of who they are and their heritage—they shouldn’t have to cower and be in fear for how they feel.

This nonsense has to stop, and there is a need for humane leaders to step up and dispel all this tension. It could end up getting us all into trouble and return us to a time we don’t want to revisit. When are we going to learn?

In retaliation for all the venom spat at Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle, right-wing commentators and YouTubers, more often than not—chicks looking for clicks—have launched a tirade against Beyoncé’s ad for Levi’s where she dons platinum blonde hair.

Beyoncé is beautiful and talented with a body of work behind her. To say otherwise is spiteful. The ad for Levi’s jeans gave a nod to her recent album, Cowboy Carter, where Beyoncé, known for R&B ventures into country music. It was a good ad which leaned on classic Americana. 

What has people triggered is Beyoncé with platinum blonde hair. Keyboard warriors are furiously damming the pop icon for cultural appropriation. Really? 

Journalist Megyn Kelly has been particularly salty on this, and her propensity for trolling is once again evident.

Of Beyoncé Kelly writes: “This is the opposite of the Sydney Sweeney ad. Quite clearly, there is nothing natural about Beyoncé. Everything from her image to her fame to her success, to her looks is bought and paid for. Screams artificial, fake, enhanced, trying too hard.”

Beyoncé is evidently black and has universal appeal. That’s why Levi’s used her for this campaign—because she is one of the biggest entertainment stars in the world with global recognition.

Women the world over switch up their hairstyles and hair colour from time to time. Ever seen Cardi B with pink hair? So what does that mean?

Last week, I saw Debbie Bissoon at the Mayberry 40th anniversary gala at the AC Hotel. She was rocking a blonde, elegant, chic hairstyle. It worked. Should Debbie be lambasted for cultural appropriation? Does her hairstyle mean she is not happy with who she is? 

Hell no! The woman is doing her thing and looking good doing so.

English journalist Piers Morgan weighed in, getting it all wrong and finding himself tripping up in the prevailing culture wars.

“Very disappointed to see Beyonce culturally appropriating Marilyn Monroe in her Levi’s ad.” Come on, Piers, you are normally more savvy than that! 

Beyoncé knows who she is and is creatively prepared to test and play with cultural elasticity. As an artist, she is not prepared to be one-dimensional and be defined by expectations. Good for her.

This totally goes over Megyn Kelly’s head, and for a journalist of her calibre, this is disappointing. I was always a big fan of David Bowie and his ability to morph musical and cultural genres. He took on soul music, even worked with a young Luther Vandross.

Should he be nailed to a cross for that, like Beyoncé is being?

Megyn Kelly has it in for Beyoncé. Could this be catty jealousy?

Listen to what she says here: “Beyoncé is in a jeans ad and she is received as if she is again the second coming, like everything that Beyoncé does and touches, because you are not allowed to criticise Beyoncé. You are only allowed to lavish praise upon her.”

Why the unmasked disapproval? It’s not like Beyoncé is overtly political, loquacious, vulgar, inarticulate. For the most part, she has a friendly demeanour. Megyn Kelly is straight-up bad-mind.

Then she goes on to say that Levi’s is a woke brand. No. It is a global brand that has endured. It was classic Americana for decades before woke was with us.

Megyn Kelly’s distaste for Beyoncé makes her so short-sighted that she makes an arse of herself about pop culture, and she should know better.

Has she heard of Destiny’s Child? Beyoncé was a star before Jay-Z came into the picture. Beyoncé’s father guided and steered her early career.

To say Beyoncé is a Jay-Z construct is just hateful.

Here’s Megyn Kelly again: “Beyoncé is an artificial creation. (This ad) It’s right on brand for her. She was made by Jay-Z. She was marketed and paid for by Jay-Z. He’s basically bought all of her awards. People in the music industry will get bullied by the pair.”

This is straight-up cruel and hurtful, not to mention unsubstantiated. If you don’t like Beyoncé, but you do like Sydney Sweeney, you are entitled to your opinion, but is it necessary to denigrate Beyoncé?

On her show, she rubbished Beyoncé with a young guy who says that Beyoncé is musically irrelevant, and Megyn Kelly agrees with him when he says Beyoncé’s music is unlistenable and awful.

She straight up wants to hammer a stake into Beyoncé’s heart, but why?

Beyoncé has taken plenty of abuse with her Levi’s ad, with talk about her not wanting to be black, self-hate, blah, blah blah.

It’s a crazy world we’re living in. Who is going to see to it that sanity rules?

Here are some of the social media barbs: 

“Why is she trying so hard to look like a white woman?’

“Isn’t Beyoncé Black? This looks like an awful lot of “Whitewashing”. Why would they do that, and not embrace how she looks naturally? Is the message that black is not beautiful?”

“She wants to be White so bad, and with all the money in the world, she still can’t be. I laugh at this.”

“Isn’t the blonde heir cultural appropriation?

Both Sydney Sweeney and Beyoncé are attractive women who made interesting jeans ads which has everyone talking; end of story. Let’s not go down the rabbit hole of eugenics and politics. Do these stars make the respective jeans look good? Are you going to go out and buy a pair? You decide.