The Naked Truth of Sydney Sweeney

    I have Wi-Fi, I used to bet on sports, and I am a red-blooded American male. So sue me if I fired up the 60-second spot for Novig, a sports betting company. I was drawn not by the utter gorgeousness of the ad’s spokeswoman, Sydney Sweeney, although that is undeniable, but by the many accounts of female athletes being enraged by the ad. Plus, I heard a rumor that Sweeney is a devoted reader! You’re a moron. Now personally, I can’t grab the rim anymore like I could in my youth, and I’m pretty sure the golf ball doesn’t go as far as it used to (although maybe every hole is playing into the wind), but I was born before Title IX, in the time when, unlike now, young women were not quite as empowered to follow their interests and make something of themselves, especially in the world of sports. Still, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. By the end of the ad, I wondered if I’d found the wrong one because the ad I saw didn’t concern women athletes in any way, shape, or form.

    It is, no doubt, a sleek ad, featuring the world’s sexiest woman saying the word “sports” over and over and over again, and if that isn’t an inducement to the average online sports bettor (overwhelmingly young and male), well, then nothing is. I knew that the ad was stirring up something powerful because of the moralizing terms with which the press described Sweeney’s appearance in the ad. Variety called the ad “risqué,” ESPN said that Sweeney wore “little or no clothing,” and many outlets described her as “nearly nude.” What the hell was this, Raquel Welch wearing a fur bikini in One Million B.C? (Showing your age, Boss!) the appropriate response to all of the above moralizing is…So What!?

    According to a central tenet of 17th-wave feminism, a woman has every right to dress or undress as she wants, and if she chooses to walk through Mall of America in a pair of pasties and a G-string, anyone leering is the one with the problem…not her. So what’s with all the slut-shaming? Well, modern Feminism is a shape-shifter. It isn’t logic and reason that determine positions; it is how well it serves the current cause.

    Call it what you will, Sweeney is clearly not wearing much clothing in the ad, and she and us are no worse for it. In a device worthy of Benny Hill (Showing your age again, Boss!), at the height of his powers, her nudity is not covered with flowerpots or fruit baskets but with sports equipment: footballs, hockey pads, a basketball hoop. You get the picture. As man has known from the days of the Athenian Agora to the hallways of Sterling Cooper…sex cells. 

    So why are women athletes so angry? The Olympic swimmer Ariane Titmus said the ad was a “kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft.” The Female Athlete Project, which describes itself as a “community of advocates, allies, and athletes,” posted on Instagram that “There are so many versions of women in sport, and Novig’s new ad with Sydney Sweeney does nothing to genuinely represent or support them.” Are you kidding me? Please, somebody explain to me why a site that profits from one of the cardinal vices would be expected to support a worthy cause? It’s a gambling commercial, people! Grow up.

    In The New York Times’ sports section The Athletic, a reporter named Megan Fearing wrote that Sweeney was, “intentionally or not,” representing “women in sport.” The ad, according to Feringa, “ignores decades of progress. It is time-warp stuff that hurts me so much.” Kill me now. I do my best to write short essays that are interesting and entertaining blog. It doesn’t mean I’m representing George Will and Jonah Goldberg!

    I honestly had to read through a trove of these childish but strongly expressed emotions before I understood their meaning. These women thought that when Sweeney picked up the hockey stick, she was representing women hockey players, and that when she picked ups a basketball, she was representing women basketball players. They thought they were being unflatteringly represented. I don’t think there is a single person who saw Sweeney obscure her large breasts who thought, “She must play professional football.” The ideas behind the ad – like the ideas behind all good ads – were simple: sports, betting, very sexy woman. 

    For the record, it’s not a good idea to make predictive bets on whether Shohei Ohtani goes 3 for 4. It is reckless, foolhardy, and a good way to lose the rent money. There are far fewer women gamblers than male ones because of this fact. Women aren’t as reckless or impulsive, or stupid, as men. They are not the target of this ad, which is directed like the world’s most powerful drone at a single audience: heterosexual men.

    The unhappy truth of the matter is that the ad neither buries nor praises women’s athletics. It ignores them.

    I think there are two things that account for the confused but anguished response to it. The first is Sydney Sweeney herself. She is the epitome, the apex, an old-fashioned sex symbol of the highest order. She’s fleshy and provocative like Marilyn Monroe, but instead of Monroe’s projected innocence she has an imperious control of male desire. A woman like Sweeney is always going to unsettle the atmosphere, rile women with her power, and excite men with her undeniable sex appeal. And to top it all off, she’s a registered Republican (which means half of America thinks she’s the Devil right off the bat)…with a body that doesn’t stop.

    The other reason for the ferociousness of the backlash is more complex, and it expresses itself as bitterness but is really a way of throwing up the white flag of defeat. No matter how much better women athletes have become and will become, they always run a distant second to male athletes. It is a truth that is often employed in a negative, snarky, and bullying way, to diminish and harm, but it is the truth nevertheless. Men are faster, stronger, and bigger than women, and in the places where those differences count — and competitive sports is one of the places where they really count — women’s sports can be admired and championed. But for many people, they can just as easily be forgotten, as had happened through this ad.

    A very old dynamic is asserting itself: the pitiless and beautiful woman whose advantages have not been earned, and the hardworking other who has spent a lifetime in training and achievement, self-denial, and effort only to be overlooked when the moment of judgement comes around. In the great novels, these things were always worked out; sense and sensibility shaping two happy lives. But in the cold worlds of gambling, cash, and movie-star beauty, there is often no room for the faithful, dogged worker, who gets overlooked, taken for granted — and even, sometimes, ignored. The fact is, women’s sports is going though a tough enough time finding its way through the travesty of men cheating the system to take advantage, physically and psychologically, of young women. Sydney Sweeney made a commercial. And she is the least of women’s athletics worries. 

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com