Finn McRedmond: Spare me the fury about Sydney Sweeney. What I see here is a sense of humour

I like Sydney Sweeney. There – I said it. I don’t think her recent commercial – in which she writhes around totally naked, modesty protected only by a tennis racket and two American footballs – is a win for sexism. I don’t think she has harmed the feminist case by virtue of her beauty. It does not matter that the actress’s family were seen pictured wearing Maga hats. I don’t even care about her ghoulish boyfriend. For the unfamiliar (perhaps you live in Siberia) Sweeney is a 29-year-old Washington native, who got her break in Gen Z TV show, Euphoria. She is blonde, doe-eyed with a Baywatch figure and an uninterested facial expression. She made news (or better put: headline upon headline upon headline) last year as the face of an American Eagle ad campaign. “Sydney Sweeney has good jeans”, so went the tagline. Funny, I thought: she’s wearing a pair of jeans, and evidently has good “genes”. Well, this was enough to earn you the reputation of a white supremacist in some quarters: joking about genes is too close to phrenology and eugenics for polite society in 2026, we were told. And this was all made much worse because she did it as a white woman (how dare she, etc).Now she is back in a commercial for sports betting agency Novig, in which she has an equity stake. In it, she is naked, hot, functionally useless for anything other than her body. This time she is not accused of white supremacy, but of failing the sisterhood. It is wrong for a non-athlete famous only for her sexiness to devalue the talents and bodies of real athletes. READ MORESweeney doesn’t look like she could throw a javelin or steer a boat. Who does she think she is? It’s a victory for sexism – so the most boring people in the world will tell you – because it elevates Sweeney’s hotness over a female athlete’s talent. And Sweeney is apparently no accidental bystander but a willing foot soldier in the cause of the patriarchy: women should be dumb, gorgeous, blonde and quiet. And worse even yet, not only has she failed fellow women, she’s proven herself a destructive and nasty capitalist too. Thanks to Sweeney, men will spend more money on sports betting because she is a siren – leading them into a gambling addiction by the sheer force of her sexiness. Forgive me for finding this all a bit worthy, humourless, po-faced, sanctimonious, high-minded and any other synonym thereof. I don’t know who decided that women were not allowed to have a sense of fun (lest she betray the feminist cause) but I would like to have a word with them. American Eagle advert featuring Sydney Sweeney sparked controversy last year. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Sweeney is young, beautiful and playing with all the tropes and baggage that come with it. Those who respond with outrage, furrowed-brows and pompous Judith Butler-esque lectures sound at best swivel-eyed and at worst very boring. Beautiful women have been driving the world insane as long as has been recorded. The semi-mythical Helen of Troy is the most obvious evidence of this time-worn tradition. Cleopatra was a main character in that great hinge point of history: the collapse of the Roman republic and the creation of the Roman emperor. Anne Boleyn and Mary Antoinette – by today’s standards perhaps not as “hot” as Sweeney – scrambled Henry VIII’s faculties, redirecting the House of Tudor twice. [ Sydney Sweeney faces backlash for ‘sexualising women’s sport’ in betting adOpens in new window ]Sweeney is a historic figure too – not because she is likely to change the course of events, but because she is an avatar for some very 21st century anxieties. Her fans say she is a woman making decisions about her own body, and making money while she does it (lean in, girl!). The critics say this harms women writ large – as she regressively proves to the world that they are only valuable for their appearance, their role as sex-objects. You could make a legitimate “feminist” case for both arguments, and you are welcome to (just out of earshot of me, please). What I see, instead, is a sense of humour. A self-knowing wink at the reader or the viewer. An ability to play a character, and to shun to pearl clutching prigs who insist she should know better. She is refusing to be a moral weathervane, no matter how many are trying to force it. She has a long battle ahead of her. I remember many years ago arguing with an aspiring scriptwriter, who suggested Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a moral aberration because (spoiler) they killed a woman at the end. Huh? “It’s a movie, they didn’t kill a real woman,” I wanted to shout back. But such is the air we breathe these days: nothing is allowed to exist without being judged for its political decency. Really, I just want these people to listen to themselves: is Sydney Sweeney a tool of late stage capitalism? Is my sports betting agency feminist? What? And has my toaster read Das Kapital?