The Sidney Sweeney advert and feminism in crisis

A brief list of progress on paper: we have had post-modernism, post-feminism, post-patriarchy, post-body shaming; we have perhaps reached the end of the line with body neutrality; and from 2030, if we are still around and global temperatures allow it, we will be entering the ‘post-post’ era – the one where nobody understands anything anymore and we simply improvise, asking AI for guidance. Over the past few years – following the end of 1980s hedonism and the dryness of the 1990s – we have explained that inner beauty trumps everything and that plump and skinny bodies are all the same; then that the ‘ugly’ can come full circle and become stunning. We had reached the point where we had established that women should never, under any circumstances, be objectified; we were almost finished with our argument, when—lo and behold—the priest’s joke of the year: they have placed a naked blonde with large breasts back in an advertisement. Who said ‘miracle’! Who said ‘disaster’! The fact is, Sydney Sweeney has appeared in all her raunchy calendar-girl splendour; she even has that elusive vacant stare of a gringo’s prey – it’s all there to drive us champion women to despair.

The short story is this: in the advertising campaign for Novig, an American sports forecasting company, Sweeney appears without knickers and completely naked, covered here and there by balls and various pieces of kit, some of which allude to foul play. But, but. However, there is an invisible feminist angle to the whole story: the astute Sidney is not merely the semi-pornographic subject of the photos; she is also a shareholder and partner in the company. The sex object is a corporate executive with a stake in the business: so where does that leave us? Is she still a servant of the patriarchy, or has the patriarchy been trampled underfoot?

It had already happened with American Eagle and the ‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ campaign, which, according to critics, evoked the grim assonance between ‘jeans’ and ‘genes’. By the summer of 2025, it had turned into a massive culture war, with accusations of racial undertones and other disasters. In the end, however, everyone was talking about it and the campaign went down a treat. In this instance, however, many observers feel the line has been crossed. The images have provoked alarm among her peers: what does this mean for the industry? Does the debate become more complex or more straightforward? “What do I know?” I asked myself. It remains unclear whether this marks a regrettable return to Colpo Grosso or a promising future in which women can pursue their goals without judgment—and profit from it. The ongoing ‘ideological conflict!’ over a girl in a bra is, frankly, tedious, although it must be acknowledged that this bust-focused advertising model, absent for years, is still proving highly lucrative. Therein lies the disheartening truth: there is little genuine progress, and our civilising missions crumble at the first sign of flesh. The girl from the advert still exists; she’s alive and well and must have some flesh on her sternum. Poor Sydney Sweeney, on top of everything else, comes from Euphoria, where she plays another hapless character grappling with that body. Sweeney hasn’t had much critical acclaim, except for the curious fact that, whatever she does, everyone sees her breasts. It’s a sort of black hole (at this point, a collective one).

A prominent décolletage often commands attention, overshadowing other narrative elements, as was the case with Scarlett Johansson. In Match Point, she appeared and the plot ceased to matter. London, Dostoevsky, luck, the English middle class – yes, yes. But Scarlett, with that wet blouse in the meadow in the rain – ah. Back to Colpo Grosso, then. Occasionally, clips from the show resurface on social media, prompting viewers to reflect: were we really like that? Stripteases, muscular men in glittery underpants, Umberto Smaila. It was a culturally primitive spectacle, yet its appeal was bluntly direct: audiences watched breasts because they liked breasts. Today, the same situation demands reflection; Sydney Sweeney loses 200,000 followers because people are outraged; a conference of American editorialists is needed to understand the reasons behind the backlash; and here I am, trying to come up with a fresh, sensible take on it, but I just can’t manage it. The court of profundity is temporarily closed for mourning.