People had a problem with Sydney Sweeney’s great jeans. So she decided to just take them off.
By now, everyone has seen Sweeney’s new raunchy commercial … and no doubt more than once, for many. The ad is a collaboration with the sports trading market Novig, in which Sweeney has traded in denim for footballs and hockey sticks to drive home the company’s motto and singular purpose of “just sports.”
As a promo for a betting app, Novig and its dual model-investor Sweeney are obviously playing to their majority-male audience, and it’s a lock that this new exposure will only parlay into serious profits. But in its airing, the ad has somehow managed to bare even more than just Sweeney’s own body. It has exposed the utterly naked hypocrisy of liberal “feminists” themselves.
It’s been fascinating to see that this is the semi-nude model on camera who suddenly breaks the “her body, her choice” mindset. Yes, this is essentially soft-core porn which only serves to objectify the female body. No, it does not help female image in the least, not that that was ever its intended purpose.
But isn’t this exactly what usually elicits a “yaaasss, queen!” from the left in the first place? After all, such ideological adherents applaud OnlyFans as liberating, hail porn as empowering, and glamorize prostitution as “sex work.” Yet somehow, this particular act of female commodification seems to be one peek-a-boob too far.
We don’t need to pretend that, stripped all the way down, this offense isn’t about anything other than the “right” politics, which ironically can never be found on the right. That if Sydney weren’t a white, blonde, supposed “MAGA Barbie,” and instead carried an extra 50 pounds, plus a Y chromosome to boot, this wouldn’t be extolled as anything other than pure body positivity.
Apparently, it comes down to an issue of perceived disrespect to female sports and its athletes, which is slightly tough to reconcile given that, one, it is not advertising female sports whatsoever, and two, how soon ESPN’s own nude athlete photoshoots of yesteryear have been forgotten. Regardless, there has been no shortage of public railing about these particular 59 seconds “sending women’s sports backward.”
“I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” wrote Olympic swimmer and gold medalist Ariarne Titmus. “How do we live in a world where monetizing a woman’s body and sexualizing women’s sport is still a thing?”
U.S. gymnast Gracie Kramer called the ad “infuriating.” Chinese-German rugby player, Sofie Fella, called the ad “disrespectful” to female athletes.
To every athlete who found the courage in herself to go off on this in the past few days, may I ask where the h-ll your outrage has been for years while men have and continue to invade and degrade women’s sports around the track, in the pool, and on the field?
Why is this ad “a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft,” but a man stealing her title, trophy, and overall opportunity can be brushed off as negligible?
How is this considered “damaging for young females getting into sport,” yet gaslighting girls that the male intruder in one’s female competition should be celebrated is somehow not damaging enough to mention?
It certainly is a bit difficult to take these qualms of alleged debasement seriously when so much else has been at best overlooked, and, at worst, cheered on by other women in their own field. Presumably these women remember the saga of Mr. Will “Lia” Thomas, the subaverage Aquaman antagonist of the NCAA who everyone could see lapping women, yet no one could spare a word.
Perhaps they recall that not-so-magical summer in Paris within the boxing ring where two men could punch women in the face on the biggest athletic stage, and male-on-female violence became no longer simply acceptable, but a spectacle to officiate and judge. Or maybe they’re familiar with California’s newest male track star, AB Hernandez, who has made a name for himself winning title after title … within the female division.
Of course, these are only three of the more than 1,000 boys and men who have infringed on female sports, and therefore more than 1,000 opportunities for such female defenders to speak up and stand up for female athletes. And yet, only a handful of women in athletics have found the grit to do so.
This is the real issue sending women’s sports backward.
Sydney Sweeney stripped her clothes, but she never stripped a title, a medal, or an opportunity to compete. She may have crushed this ad, but she never crushed an athlete’s lifelong goals. While she may get quite a few men to forfeit their money on this app, she will never cause a woman to forfeit against an intruder in her own league. But still, others would rather wage a campaign against the wrong kind of woman than for the right kind of cause.
It is insane that it took pigskin on a woman’s skin to wake up the left to come to the defense of female athletes, but ethics were never exactly a favorite in this game. So the question remains: what are the odds of such hypocrites ever managing to find and keep an ounce of sisterly consistency for their fellow females?
Unfortunately, that’s just not a bet worth making.
