The real reason people are mad at Sydney Sweeney’s new ad | Opinion

In practice, the real reason individuals are mad at Sydney Sweeney's new ad Opinion Sydney Sweeney's new ad for sports betting app Novig has sparked backlash from athletes and critics alike.

Key points

• After the first American Eagle ad, critics accused her of promoting "White supremacy." She was outed as a registered Republican.
• Sydney Sweeney discussions American Eagle jeans ad, triggering liberals all over again Opinion.
• "Euphoria" actress Sydney Sweeney posted footage showing her and a production team tossing hundreds of bras onto the Hollywood sign.
• Sweeney survived the silly uproar and returned this year for another American Eagle jeans ad.
• The latest "scandal" involves another ad campaign – this time for Novig, a sports trading app (think Polymarket, but for sports).

"Euphoria" actress Sydney Sweeney posted footage showing her and a production team tossing hundreds of bras onto the Hollywood sign. Sydney Sweeney is hot.

In practice, the 29-year-old actress knows it. Her fans know it. So do the firms that keep putting her in ad campaigns. So what's the major agreement?

Not much, actually – until you factor in the politics other individuals have associated with her.

Last summer, Sweeney created a kerfuffle for starring in an American Eagle jeans ad that highlighted a play on the words "jeans" and "genes." Progressives piled on throughout the internet, treating the blue-eyed, blond-haired Sweeney and her playful, tongue-in-cheek campaign as some kind of eugenics dog whistle.

Sweeney survived the silly uproar and returned this year for another American Eagle jeans ad. She's additionally been promoting her own lingerie line, SYRN.

For context, the latest "scandal" involves another ad campaign – this time for Novig, a sports trading app (think Polymarket, but for sports). Sweeney shot a series of photos for them this month, strategically placed sports gear covering the essentials and nothing else. The tagline: "Just sports."

Is it provocative? Sure. It's additionally fun, and Novig's marketing team clearly knows its audience – mostly men. It appears to be working, judging by the millions of likes and views the posts are racking up (pun intended).

What interests me isn't the ad. It's the overreaction to anything Sweeney touches – and the fact that it has everything to do with her being a registered Republican.

Sydney Sweeney's jeans ad triggers liberals. She looks good. They don't. Opinion. Has our society suddenly become prudish? I don't think so.

Meanwhile, the backlash was swift. Female athletes lined up to rebuke Sweeney, offended that she'd dare advertise a product only tangentially related to what they do. Their real complaint: that she was trivializing women's sports by sexualizing them.

Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus called the ad "a kick in the face to every woman" who had dedicated herself to her sport. Others piled on with similar lines. Prudish? Maybe. Or maybe something else is going on.

Forgive me if I missed it, but I don't recall hearing the same uproar every year when Sports Illustrated releases its swimsuit edition, a decades-old tradition that features models, actresses and, yes, even female athletes in various states of undress.

And Sweeney isn't even one of them. She's not an athlete. She's advertising a product to individuals who like sports – nothing more.

Let's be honest: It's Sweeney these folks are disgruntled with, not her partnership with Novig. Sweeney doesn't talk regarding her politics. Progressives should leave her alone.

After the first American Eagle ad, critics accused her of promoting "White supremacy." She was outed as a registered Republican. Then President Donald Trump posted his backing on social media.

That's all it took for Sweeney to become blacklisted for her views among progressives, especially the Hollywood crowd.

Unlike most of Sweeney's liberal acting colleagues. This person can't shut up regarding their obnoxious anti-Trump views, Sweeney is highly private regarding her personal politics, demurring consistently when she's asked concerning it. And she often is.

In an interview with Cosmopolitan in January, for instance, she was questioned regarding the "MAGA Barbie" nickname that some had given her online and how she "understood" the moniker.

"I've never been here to talk about politics, " Sweeney responded. "I've always been here to create art, so this is just not a conversation I want to be at the forefront of. And I think since of that, residents want to take it even further and employ me as their own pawn." That's exactly what they want to do.

New Yorker writer Jennifer Wilson wrote an entire piece questioning whether conservatives have "taken sexy back" and the "political implications of cleavage, " devoting her opening to Sweeney and her SYRN lingerie campaign.

"While we were pretending not to be looking, breasts had somehow become Republican-coded, " Wilson opines.

Despite all the discourse and uproar over Sweeney and her bosom, she's trying to live her best life and create the most of her 20s (which, trust me, go all too swiftly). Let's not stand in her way.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques. Share your feedback to support improve our site!

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