BODY POLITICS

Hands Off Sydney Sweeney!

I hate that everything is now seen through the MAGA political prism. I hate that a humdrum jeans campaign has assumed outsized (but NOT plus-sized, which is woke) cultural currency.

Opinion

You’ve almost certainly seen the commercial by this point. There’s the doe-eyed Hollywood starlet posing coquettishly in various double denim, triple denim, all-of-the-denim-layered (but still somehow semi-naked) ensembles. Then there’s the tag line: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”

Wink wink!

In case you missed the point, a second ad explains that, “jeans are handed down from parents to children.”

WINK WINK!

JEANS OR GENES?

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Eboni Boykin-Patterson

Let’s break it down. Jeans equals genes equals discredited race science equals the current “let’s hear it for white people” movement we’re being forced to endure by our master race administration—or something.

Sweeney, 27, is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed actress who stars in several popular movies and television programs I have not seen. She’s beautiful in that traditional all-American way we associate with dairy farms and beauty pageant runner-ups. Were Leni Riefenstahl casting for the good wife waiting for her Aryan hero to return from the front, she would have booked Sweeney.

It’s not that I’m equating Sweeney to those purveyors of eugenics. I’m just saying, in today’s political climate, when the pretty white girl starts talking about her terrific genetics, it’s going to raise some eyebrows.

But even though we’re currently living in the worst Sound of Music reboot, I don’t know that folks are doing themselves any favors by pointing their fingers at the prettiest Von Trapp family singer. Sweeney is, apparently, a registered Republican but to suggest, as some have, that American Eagle is advertising eugenics as much as mass market fashion strikes a discordant note with me.

‘PLEASE’

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Matt Wilstein

Now, was stoking outrage the plan all along? I have no idea, but, as always, all publicity is good publicity. The bottom line is the bottom line. After President Trump found out about the commercial and (more importantly) Sweeney’s apparent political affiliation, he cheered on the spot, calling it “the HOTTEST ad out there” on his social media account.

According to the New York Times, American Eagle’s stock price soared—eagle-like, presumably—over twenty percent the day of Trump’s endorsement, before coming back down to Earth the following day.

SIMMER DOWN FELLAS

JD Vance Gushes About ‘Beautiful Girl’ Sydney Sweeney

Jack Silvers

Until about two minutes ago, I had next to no idea who Sydney Sweeney even was, so this isn’t me going to bat for some actress who has otherwise been selling her used bathwater in recent months. Nor am I defending a store I have only seen empty in dying shopping malls. If I’m upset—and yes, I’m a little upset; who isn’t these days?—it’s that we keep doing this same stupid cha-cha-cha over and over. Kendall Jenner tries to give a cop a Pepsi during the summer of BLM. Bud Light sends a personalized can of beer to a trans influencer. Superman (which I am excellent in, by the way), says caring for people is punk rock and suddenly America’s favorite Boy Scout is too woke for Ben Shapiro.

Again, controversy sells. But today though, I don’t mean that brands are courting it as much as influencers and shock jocks on both sides are peering into every conceivable tea leaf to find offense. To rally their troops. To claim a scalp—any scalp. Sydney Sweeney drops a commercial and it’s fascist propaganda, but Abercrombie & Fitch, a brand who in years past has been skewered for its own, shall we say, narrow body image promotion, releases a commercial featuring a woman of a certain weight and gets praised to high heaven for appealing to “real people.”

And never mind that a few months ago, Sweeney herself was getting skewered on social media over her bikini photos. “She needs to lose a few pounds from the middle,” was one comment. So, is she not a real person who ought to be celebrated for having a real, human body? Apparently not. She’s a fat slob to the MAGA base when they pre-judge her Hollywood liberal leanings, and a rootin’ tootin’ angel sent straight from our heavenly Cabela’s when they believe her politics skew towards them after all.

Is Sweeney even a MAGA chick? Unclear. Photos taken—and that later leaked online to much consternation—during her mother’s 60th birthday party back in 2022 showed attendants wearing “Make 60 Great Again” and “Blue Lives Matter” gear, which Sweeney said came from an LA-based, gay-pride-marching friend of her mom’s who brought the merch as a joke.

Is that true? I don’t know and, to quote a former leading man speaking to a former dishy leading lady, I don’t give a damn.

(Sweeney herself addressed frustration with the incident: “People are so fast to build someone up, and then they love tearing them down,” she said later in an interview with Variety. “And it’s so fascinating to see.... All of a sudden, I’m not a human anymore.”)

DOING TOO MUCH

MAGA’s Obsession With Sydney Sweeney Takes Cringe Turn

Catherine Bouris

I’ve never been one to tell people where to focus their ire. You want to be mad at Sydney Sweeney and a store that nobody shops at? Feel free. But it seems to me that allowing yourself to get worked up over something which matters not even a little bit might deplete you of the energy needed to fight for things which do.

We are a dismal people, no doubt, replete with the miseries of the day. Why add to those miseries unless you are getting something in exchange? Well, what is it you’re getting? Delicious, delicious outrage. You’re getting another person to declare an enemy of all that is good and right.

Like all cultural war nonsense, this will die down in a few days. Sydney Sweeney will go back to starring in whatever she stars in, American Eagle will continue to tout its wares and fans of celebrity outrage will surely not have to wait long before something says or does something that threatens to throw the pop culture planet off its axis.

In the meantime, I’m cool with my Levi 501s until it turns out that Levi Strauss had some questionable opinions about gold miners or something. In conclusion, everything is stupid.

Opinion

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