{"id":892873,"date":"2026-09-15T12:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892873\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T12:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:34:13","slug":"are-you-outraged-by-sydney-sweeney-again-more-fool-you-marina-hyde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892873\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you outraged by Sydney Sweeney \u2013 again? More fool you | Marina Hyde"},"content":{"rendered":"

Would it be insanely unfashionable to defend Sydney Sweeney? You may or may not have heard that the Euphoria star has done an ad for a sports betting site<\/a>. Sorry, I think we still have to call them \u201csports prediction markets\u201d in the United States, which only recently popped its legalised sports betting cherry, and is behaving like a complete teenage boy about the whole thing. Anyway, among other poses, the ad features a naked Sydney holding a couple of American footballs over her breasts, which are \u2013 and I feel she would want us to acknowledge this \u2013 seriously among the very best in Hollywood. Maybe THE best. Listen, it is what it is. Life would be very boring if we couldn\u2019t say so with a twinkle.<\/p>\n

Forgive me. Life is, in fact, very, very boring, because yet another Sydney Sweeney-advertising-centred firestorm has been ignited by this ad. (Last year, some lunatic genuinely suggested her \u201cgood jeans\u201d American Eagle ad<\/a> was something to do with white supremacy and eugenics.) Her latest product endorsement has drawn the ire of a cascade of female athletes<\/a>, who have described it variously as demeaning women\u2019s sport, sexualised representation of athletes, and \u201ca kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, [and] every woman who enjoys sports for what it really is \u2013 teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, unity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Come on. With respect, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s a kick in the face for any of those things. Not to be a crazed optimist, but the great thing about where women\u2019s sport has got to today is that it feels a whole lot bigger and stronger and more compelling than whether Sydney Sweeney<\/a> did or didn\u2019t get her tits out for a gambling ad. I can\u2019t help feeling it would have been cooler for women\u2019s sport to simply not even mention the naked gambling ad at all. And, if it had to, maybe focus on the gambling bit rather than the woman advertising it. I haven\u2019t definitively run the numbers on this, but instinct tells me that gambling wrecks a lot more lives than Sydney Sweeney.<\/p>\n

Honestly, not everyone has to be the same and on-message, and I could not be more convinced that Sweeney adds to the gaiety of the nations. I love it that she\u2019s out there in the culture, pissing off reflexively judgmental people who ignore so many bigger issues but have really strong views on sexy ad campaigns. And even slightly sexist ones. I truly loved it when, after one controversy or another a couple of years ago, Sydney posted a picture of herself<\/a> in a sweatshirt reading: \u201cSORRY FOR HAVING GREAT TITS AND CORRECT OPINIONS\u201d. (Would also like to know where you buy this sweatshirt, etc.)<\/p>\n

Sydney Sweeney and Scooter Braun in Venice for the Venice film festival, 4 September 2026. Photograph: Stefano Mazzola\/GC Images<\/p>\n

That she has emerged as such a frequent culture wars punching bag says so much more about the predictable, playable nature of her serial detractors than it does about her. Why can\u2019t they just face it \u2013 Sydney\u2019s gonna Sweeney. None of it feels like that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n

Or rather, it does to some. After another ad campaign last year, some fashion analyst gasped to the New York Times<\/a>: \u201cIt seems like she\u2019s not embarrassed or ashamed promoting all of these different projects.\u201d Hmm. Always great to see women implying other women should be feeling shame for hideous crimes like being a face of both Miu Miu AND Armani Beauty. The previous year, a columnist had described Sydney as \u201cproblematic yet unashamed<\/a>\u201d, which, ironically, I found somewhat problematic. Have to say, I\u2019m a big fan of women not being made to feel shame unless whatever they\u2019ve done is really quite bad.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it was after a veteran female producer and film studies professor publicly dismissed her<\/a> as not pretty and bad at acting that Sweeney gave a reactive interview in which she observed of Hollywood<\/a>: \u201cThis entire industry, all people say is \u2018women empowering other women\u2019. None of it\u2019s happening. All of it is fake and a front for all the other shit that they say behind everyone\u2019s back.\u201d Amazing. Because where\u2019s the lie? Inevitably, it was her who got branded unsisterly for saying it.<\/p>\n

A few months later, non-insult was added to non-injury once it emerged that Sydney was dating the considerably older former Taylor Swift foe\/Justin Bieber manager Scooter Braun, who\u2019s a sort of music industry vampire but not in a hot way. I saw someone who obviously fancied Sweeney lamenting this romance as \u201clike a 19-year-old wonderkid signing for Al-Nassr\u201d, which is a fun joke and about the level of seriousness with which we should treat other people\u2019s dating choices. Don\u2019t worry about it, guys! It\u2019s not like you have to have sex with Scooter Braun. She\u2019s doing it for you \u2013 relax.<\/p>\n

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Ultimately, I always feel somewhat compelled to defend Sydney\u2019s right to do whatever stupid things she feels like in her 20s, safe \u2013 if not sound \u2013 in the knowledge that she will be forced to spend her entire 30s and probably her entire 40s atoning for every single one of them in every single interview, where every single reporter will just really want her to express shame and\/or personal growth. It\u2019s all such an endlessly dreary bore. There must be less repressed and joyless things to do with our time. While we spend far too long figuring those out, I do hope Sweeney finds a way to continue apparently not giving a shit \u2013 and that everyone else considers they might have more fun if they took a leaf out of her book from time to time.<\/p>\n

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What a Time to be Alive! by Marina Hyde (Guardian Faber, \u00a320). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Would it be insanely unfashionable to defend Sydney Sweeney? You may or may not have heard that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-892873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}