Sydney Sweeney’s naked bet is cheap provocation

Sydney Sweeney sits naked, legs spread akimbo as she straddles a basketball hoop. Her long blonde hair cascades down her breasts as she spins a basketball with one hand and covers her exposed vagina with the other.

This is Sweeney’s latest bit of rage bait, designed to whip up an incensed frenzy that will turn a neat profit. She’s previously decried the dehumanising effects of public discourse about her body, but this latest act proves Sweeney really is the little girl who cried objectification.

This time, she isn’t fooling anyone.

In the commercial for the sports prediction market company, Novig, Sweeney is naked throughout, using sporting equipment (soccer balls, basketballs, hockey sticks – you get the picture) to cover herself up, but not without accentuating the size of her breasts.

“No betting on wars or deaths and no politics,” she says, posing seductively. “Just sports.”

In a statement, Sweeney described the video as focusing on sports with “confidence, humour and a playful edge”.

It’s an unsurprising move for the Euphoria actor who last year proved herself a master at courting public controversy when she fronted an American Eagle Outfitters ad that became culture war fodder after some argued it promoted eugenics (in it, Sweeney uses a wordplay on “genes” and “jeans”). Sweeney stayed silent through the ruckus, American Eagle shares jumped 38 per cent and she launched her own lingerie brand, Syrn, not long after.

Her latest ad hasn’t gone over well with female athletes who have faced unsolicited (and often unrelenting) sexualisation, misogyny and harassment throughout their careers.

Australian swimming champion Ariarne Titmus, water polo player Tilly Kearns and Canadian alpine skier Cassidy Gray were just a few athletes who expressed justifiable rage at how the hyper-sexualised ad carelessly invalidates huge strides made by women’s sport.

Is Sweeney once again cynically exploiting the culture war media dynamic? The thing with her is: she is aware of these experiences, and she knows exactly what she’s doing appearing in an ad like this, but it’s doubtful she cares.

You only need to do a quick survey of her recent press clippings for the inconsistencies to start adding up.

Last year, Sweeney starred in and executive produced the biopic, Christy. In it, she played the boxer Christy Martin, who was America’s best female boxer in the ’90s while privately experiencing domestic violence.

Promoting the movie, Sweeney spoke to GQ about her childhood career in kickboxing, where she first got a taste of the misogyny female athletes face. “I was the only girl there. It was a lot of ‘what is she doing here?’ The dads were a little upset that their sons would be fighting a girl and then I would sometimes win,” Sweeney said, also noting that she resonated with Martin’s story because “I find myself in a lot of battles both in front and not in front of the world.”

Not only that, it’s now common knowledge young actresses like Sweeney could tell us stories that would chill our bones, so endemic is gender-based discrimination in Hollywood.

In fact, Sweeney even launched her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, to be able to have a more active role in her career. Speaking to Elle, she explained, “having a voice and being creatively involved in the industry is crucial … Taking initiative and actively shaping my path allows me to pursue my passions and hopefully make a meaningful impact on the industry.”

Sweeney has also talked about how dehumanising the discourse around her body can be. “People feel connected and free to be able to speak about me in whatever way they want, because they believe that I’ve signed my life away. That I’m not on a human level anymore, because I’m an actor,” she told Variety. “It’s this weird relationship that people have with me that I have no control or say over.”

This time, she’s already slyly responded. Amid the fallout, Sweeney took to her Instagram stories to post images of ESPN magazine covers featuring athletes posing naked including Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird.

It’s something of an own-goal to make such a comparison. These covers are for ESPN‘s annual “Body issue”. Launched in 2009, they intended to celebrate the strength, ability and diversity of the athletes’ bodies as they’re often shamed for not conforming to model-like aesthetics. The covers are accompanied by in-depth stories about body image and vulnerability.

Sweeney is not an athlete, her body is not subverting normative ideals and her nakedness isn’t making a statement beyond how easily people fall for cheap provocations. Where their covers are defiant, Sweeney’s ad seeks to serve the male gaze because it’s largely men who will pay for the gambling service she’s promoting.

Sweeney wants to have her cake and eat it, too. Simultaneously attempting to position herself as a burgeoning young feminist in film desperate to make movies that put women in control of their own narratives, while also appearing in advertisements like this that undermine those achievements. The commercial also makes the earlier efforts seem hollow, and potentially a cheap cash grab made at a time when “movies for women” are a profitable play for film studios (see: Barbie, Wicked and The Substance.)

Sweeney could respond in such a way that indicates she really does want to be thought of as more than just a pair of boobs. But it’s unlikely she’ll do such a thing given there’s more money to be made by stoking these controversies and staying silent.

The next time Sweeney plays another card like this, keep scrolling. Our attention is currency, and we’re better served giving it to athletes like Titmus, Kearns and Gray than lining the back pockets of gambling companies and cynical people like Sydney Sweeney.

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.