In the one-minute campaign, the American actress says “sports” a lot, while impressively managing not to actually engage in any form of athletic prowess but instead vacillating between varying states of undress and espousing the potential bikini-viability of footballs.The response has been swift and damning, predominantly from women in sport whom Sweeney is — intentionally or not — representing. Athletes of all abilities and levels have shared images of what it actually looks like to be a woman in sport, denouncing Sweeney’s hyper-sexualised iteration. In one sense, the speed and power of the movement against the advertisement have been encouraging, signs of some societal shift over the past decade….The reason Sweeney’s commercial has infuriated so many women in sport is that if there is a group that has managed to genuinely force change in the perception of what women are capable of since the turn of the century — of what it means to be a strong and powerful woman, to be a girl, without prostrating to the male gaze — it is women in sport….this advert hurts so much [b]ecause Sweeney and all those implicit in creating it have intentionally ignored the decades of hard work by elite and amateur athletes who have managed not only to make a dent in that system, but even to deconstruct parts of it altogether.
Really?
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Is Sweeney’s Ad Unethical?
It’s definitely unethical in one respect: the ad is part of the furious assault of online gambling on society, of which no good can possible come.
But nobody is complaining about that. Here is conservative gadfly Jim Treacher with the pro-Sydney perspective:
Last year, liberals were all angry at Sydney Sweeney for wearing blue jeans. Now they’re angry that she’s not wearing blue jeans. Or anything else. She’s naked again. She just did an ad for some sports betting app, I think. I don’t know. Not anything I’ll ever use. But in the ad, she’s butt-nekkid, with strategically placed sporting equipment covering her naughty bits. I’ve never seen any of the movies or TV shows this woman’s been in, but you cannot miss her ads.
And neither can the haters.
The ad triggered a negative reaction from those who object to its sexualization of women in sports. Several women Olympic athletes have weighed in on the Sweeney ad, including Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medal swimmer who wrote in a post: “I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this… How do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?”
When I was young, it was always people older than me saying that kind of stuff: “How can Madonna do this? What does this say about our society? Shame on you people!” Well, now the shaming is coming from people younger than me.
There will always be killjoys. There’s always gonna be jealousy and resentment. People are always gonna try to ruin a good time….There’s a theory that this woman keeps triggering these people because she’s not a liberal. Or at least not an outspoken one. Her relatives were seen in MAGA hats at one point, I think. That’s how it all started. That could be part of it, I guess. I think it’s just women hating a woman for being more attractive than they are. If they could get a lucrative endorsement deal for lounging around in the buff, they would. But they can’t, so they rage at somebody who can. Haven’t any of these people heard of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue? That’s been around since I can remember.
Or is the issue that the ad is tweaking really the current controversy about non-women in women’s sports? That’s how I took it….
I find it amusing, and a little sad, how conservatives and liberals seem to have largely flipped on the issue of female sexualization in media. In fact, this is one area where I agree with the Left, that modesty is worth preserving, and using soft-core porn in mainstream advertising is not a good thing. That being said, the outrage is merely triggering the Streisand Effect, and if the Left really cared about overly sexualizing women, then they shouldn’t have encouraged it and the hook-up culture back in the day as part of “women’s liberation”. Sorry leftists, but It was your showbiz people that created this monster, now you have to live with it.
Conservatives don’t flip: the practical and ethical ones simply try to hold on to the status quo after the Left has ratcheted the culture in another destructive direction. You can’t try to make abortion illegal, though the culture once held that it was shameful and immoral. Ditto sex before marriage, recreational drug use, state supported gambling, pornography…it is in the nature of a free society to deteriorate under the weight of unrestricted bad ideas sold to ignorant, apathetic people. Normalizing soft porn in the public square wasn’t the Right’s doing, but that shapely horse is out of the barn. Conservatives are doomed if all they do is want to go back to more innocent times. That’s not only hopeless, it loses credibility.
I don’t think liberals have flipped on the issue at all. They are still largely selling female sexualization. They still preach that females should be able to use their bodies how they want. I think this is mostly about Sweeny being a conservative and nothing else.
Have the comically envious never heard of the ESPN The Body Issue?
Funniest thing; a June 2018 cover featured Susan Bird and Megan Rapinoe (who never fails to prompt personal reverse peristalsis within my maxillary orifice!) in grinning all_but_nekkid reverie.
The reaction? Bold…innovative…edgy…and (checks notes) 99.9% positive and HISTORIC.
So, would the reaction have been different had the ad included the (IMO) très fetching Spiranac, with both her and Sweeney getting…um…chummy, might the response have been more…er…accepting?
PWS
I have no sympathy for the motivation of the the anger against this ad, with mention of “the male gaze” (a typical term of sex-negative feminists to express hatred against hetero-sexual males) while at the same time the weirdest forms of sexuality are pushed into our children’s faces at public schools with the blessing of the left. Seeing a good looking women in all her natural beauty is actually a sign of health in comparison.
I do not want the prudery and Comstockery of the past back either. Nobody forces you to watch the ad.
Nobody forces you to watch the ad.
Bingo!
I’m sure they’d have no problem if Sweeney flaunted an Adam’s Apple in the ad and a pair of testicles in the locker room…
I heard that Sweeney is a part owner of Novig.
Apart from the ethics of being involved in that kind of venture, does the fact that she is just hawking her wares change the ethics at all.
-Jut
If true, I’m not sure I see that any differently than Ryan Reynolds advertising for the phone company he owns…though he doesn’t flaunt his male sexuality in a state of total undress, covered only by footballs.
There’s a reason for that…
Yet.
Gee I’m sorry have they not watched gymnastics, track, swimming, skating, beach volleyball, rock climbing, or regular volleyball for that matter? Women tend to participate in sports with revealing clothing. Why is an ad with an athlete hiding naughty bits shocking to anyone? Gabby Reece, a professional athlete, has many similar pictures plus in her athletic gear (bikini) and she was playing sports in the 90’s. Why people are calling this new, unnerving and shocking when we have vanity fair with a nude, pregnant Demi Moore, this is all rehashed nonsense. Perfume ads have used mostly naked people before.
Women’s beach volleyball exists solely because of attractive women’s bodies in one-piece bathing suits. I have watched Olympic women’s gymnastics in a bar. Yeah, the appeal of that sports has nothing to do with exploiting sexuality. Sure. Right.
I recall listening to Peter Gammons describe Anna Kournikova as “sex with a tennis racket.” How long ago was that?!? It’s gymnastics, it’s tennis, it’s golf, it’s everywhere. Watch old matches of Steffi Graf and Chris Evert…or golfing with Nancy Lopez.
Clothing has radically changed in women’s sports in the last twenty years, becoming more and more revealing. And women, apparently, have been perfectly fine to wear it.
People have choices. Women are people. If they don’t like the tight, form-fitting clothes and deem them too revealing, they can revolt and demand a change. So far, they haven’t.
The funny part in the Athletic piece is the author’s choice of female athletes who “did not sacrifice their femininity or sexuality in exchange for sporting success.” Serena and Venus Williams, Naomi Osaka, gymnast Simone Biles. All “of color” and none that a typical male of any ethnicity would rush to check out in a fold-out.
How about women’s volleyball in general? They’re constantly digging their (almost) bikini bottoms out of their butt cracks. Why is that the uniform instead of the shorts women basketball players wear? Those two sports have similar performance requirements, and completely different uniforms. The uniforms are actually a distraction. If they wanted a tight fit, the shorts would short legging sections to avoid the malfunction risk they’re fighting constantly.
Yet no one is asking why…. because we know the answer.
Ms. Sweeny does not seem to object to her participation in the afore mentioned advertisement and attitudes around female appearance and “sexual” role.
Is it possible that the anti-sexualization movement also sends a message that the male(mostly) sexual orientation is wrong? Our EA host has mentioned too much to quote that identifies the continuum on which advertising like this sits.
What is at the root of the anti-sexualization objections? Women’s dignity, worth, significance?
It seems to me that there are two distinct topics: 1) the slippery porn slope and the documented destructiveness and 2) the way women want to be experienced/valued.
Is it possible that the anti-sexualization movement also sends a message that the male(mostly) sexual orientation is wrong?
I think that is the main issue. The feminist anger expressed in the main post explicitly mentioned “the male gaze”. With a paraphrase of Mencken’s famous “Feminism is the haunting fear that somewhere, some man, may be happy seeing a good looking woman.
What is at the root of the anti-sexualization objections? Women’s dignity, worth, significance?
Let’s get real about nudity and human dignity; we are way past the Victorian era with their negative attitudes about sexuality and nudity. Does Sydney Sweeney think that the ad reduces her dignity, worth, significance? Is all nudity porn? Do we have to cover nude paintings in our major museums? Or Michelangelo’s David? Are we allowed to admire the beauty of the human body, as an aspect of God’s creation? Are women allowed to be admired because of their beauty?
I would like to offer for consideration that for most women, the architecture of thought in the male/testosterone brain is foreign and incomprehensible, thus dangerous. The female/estrogen brain is likewise to men. As most women do not receive and experience bein valued in a healthy manner by men, what men are is implicitly foreign and dangerous.
Conjecture: If women were esteemed and valued and experienced appropriate safety and flourishing coming from what men contribute, the sex-objectification of womanly beauty would not be considered an evil thing, but rather a desirable thing.
So why do women wear high heels, and spend a lot of time in the mirror applying make-up? Why do young women visit night clubs in little black dresses, and other body hugging attire? What makes the bikini popular attire for young women at the beach?
I feel I should know the answer to this…..
PWS
Me too. I’m waiting for your response.
jvb
Sydney Sweeney … I’d switch.
You owe me a new keyboard.
Sydney Sweeney was branded a villain with the American Eagle ad and her “MAGA hat” wearing family. (I zoomed into the family photo and saw “Make 60 Great Again” on the hats, but maybe I was the only one who bothered). She saw it reflected in the low turnout for movies like Americana, Eden and Christy. Christy, a movie about a groundbreaking female athlete and closeted lesbian who was stabbed and shot by her husband, should have been a must-see for the liberal-feminist movie goer, but Sydney is a villain so they did not go see it. None of these movies featured sex or glamor. She was the character that liberal women claim to want to see but rarely actually pay the price of a ticket to support.
Instead of apologizing or whine her way back into their good graces she has embraced the role of villain, and has probably made more money in that role than any other she could play. She feeds a need; she provides an object of hatred to a group desperately seeking one. They celebrate their hatred and drive her personal success.
I think the ad campaign was brilliant: not because of its content, but because Novig probably only had to post the ad once. Her haters have posted the ad thousands of times.
Thus demonstrating the Streisand Effect once again…
For as long as any of us can remember shapely, lovely women have starred in advertisements because human beings value beauty. There is recent scientific research that confirms a beauty bias. And
It is not surprising that the ad men (and women) who get paid big bucks for their marketing skills honed in on this fact of nature decades ago.
I’m not sure if anyone mentioned that Ms. Sweeney is not an idiot, was prepared for this and immediately fired back with images of female athletes posing in various stages of dress for magazine covers and advertisements. As others have noted, the outrage smacks of hypocrisy and jealousy – Mean Girls.
Beauty perception is not solely a learned adult trait — it has perceptual roots in infancy.
In evolutionary biology beauty is a proxy for youth and health, both predictors of fertility. If a man wants to pass on his genes to the next generation, his best chances are when he is able to mate with a beautiful (young and healthy) women.
If you ask women looking for a man what type of man they are looking they often mention the three sixes, namely six feet tall, a six pack, and a six figure salary. So women do look for good looking men.
As others have noted, the outrage smacks of hypocrisy and jealousy – Mean Girls.
I have often wondered about the causes of feminist outrage. My impression is that feminists are on average physically less attractive. So envy and sour grapes play a role. Slut shaming is also an activity commonly done by women. It is about tearing down the competition, and punishing those who break the pussy cartel by giving it away to easily.
Finally, though not completely apples to apples comparison – does anyone find it nauseating that these shrill leftists feign outrage and condemn a beautiful woman who uses God’s gifts to earn a living, yet are loudly supportive of a woman who murders her three children? What moral foundation allows this?
In predictable solidarność with WNBA black lesbians, terminally unhappy Feministas don’t like Sophie Cunningham, either.
I wonder WHY…
PWS
The Babylon Bee with the can’t-miss solution:
https://babylonbee.com/news/sydney-sweeney-tries-to-gain-support-of-liberal-women-by-murdering-multiple-children