Sydney Sweeney is an actress and owner of lingerie brand SYRN, known for her role in the HBO show Euphoria.
With a controversial, improper background, Sweeney has previously collaborated with Dr. Squatch for a limited edition soap bar called Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss. The soap was scented like “Morning Wood” and marketed as being made with her own personal bath water. With only 5,000 bars produced and her alluring marketing of calling the soap users “dirty little boys”, the bars sold out within seconds of launching and can now be found on resale sites like eBay for anywhere from $300 to $2,000.
Sweeney recently launched her latest plea for attention with her promotional video for the gambling app Novig. In this video Sweeney appears with nothing on but hopes, dreams and a football in each hand. Aside from the ad itself, sources state that Sydney Sweeney may have had more of a role in the actual content of the ad than she had led us to believe, even mentioning she may have been the creative director of the ad. The video, while being a horrible attempt at promoting the app, sparked a good bit of anger on the media.
Chloe Davis, a sophomore speech, language and hearing sciences major, described how she felt about the advertisement.
“Growing up playing sports, you don’t really see yourself trying to do it for the male gaze or to look provocative,” Davis said. “You’re more so playing sports because you enjoy it.”
Sweeney grew up in the entertainment industry and started starring in roles as early as 12 years old. The entertainment industry has a history of over sexualizing young girls and Sweeney was no exception.
Sweeney was only 19 when filming first started for her role as Cassie Howard in “Euphoria”, which contained multiple scenes of full nudity, on-screen directed intimacy and other mature adult content.
Grayson Page, a junior film and media production major, noted how Sweeney’s oversexualized roles may have contributed to her willingness to play into these more inappropriate advertisements.
“I think she’s been over-sexualized for a very, very long time,” Page said. “I think she no longer has a personality. I think that she puts her character into her sexuality.”
Amongst the anger in the media are comments about how this ad could be seen as downplaying women’s role as a society and in sports.
While not directly understating female athletes, the ad was just gross, depicting women as purely sexual. Novig commented that Sweeney herself was “wearing just sports” as a reference to the fact that in the ad she uses different sporting equipment as a sad attempt to cover herself up.
Sophomore health sciences major Mia Feigel commented on how athletic sexualization is affecting women everywhere.
“[Sydney Sweeney’s ad] just kind of lost me,” Feigel said. “Especially sexualizing [being a female athlete, something] that so many women actually do for their careers and are struggling to find a place in, is really disheartening.”
Women are so much more than just their bodies and have so many skills to show other than just what they were born with. Whittling women down in such an overly sexualized way is sad more than anything else. Everyone should have the right to be recognized for their grit, hard work, achievements and determination rather than feeling like showing themselves is the only way that they can be respected.