Sidney Sweeney has a history of being a “pick me” girl with plenty of controversy before the latest ad for sports betting company Novig. The ad features her in various sports attire or equipment — rather, it features Sweeney’s body wearing a jersey or wearing nothing but a football covering key areas.
It’s not news to anyone that the female body makes money. In this case it induces men to gamble on sports. Remember the adage that sex sells?
Julia Goldie Day
Just for sport? Female athletes disagree. Riho Maruyama released a video on social media which states: “Our bodies are not most valuable when being looked at. It’s about what our bodies can do. It’s here to move. To run. To lift. To fall and rise again. Women in sports show us: Strong is feminine, powerful is beautiful. We need role models who prove a woman’s body is not in how her body looks but in everything it can do.”
In response, Sweeney posted pictures of popular athletes who have posed for photographs in the nude, including Serena Willamas.
Many women are rolling their eyes when seeing the ad, while some men are asking, “What is the big deal?”
The difference is that what Sweeney participated in was the sexualization of the female body in a sports setting. Sweeney seems to enjoy being the center of attention, seemingly innocently stoking controversy. “What do you mean, I like jeans!” she declared when asked about the commercial for American Eagle with the tag “Sidney Sweeney has good jeans.” Our president and vice president appreciated the casual racist nod to eugenics packaged in the dumb blonde act.
The patriarchy teaches us women’s bodies are only good for cisgender sex and procreation. Our bodies and minds are inferior to men so we must submit to the hierarchy, staying in our place, focusing on our looks and children.
Sweeney is using this system to her advantage. She approached Novig for a stake in the sports betting company to develop the ad and harmed women and herself in one fell swoop. While she picks up a good paycheck in the present, in the future she may regret selling herself as a sex symbol. Look to the past blonde bombshells for their stories of regret and abuse. The white privilege she embraces only harms herself in the end.
The tagline in the ad tells it all. Just sport. In the video voiceover Sidney says, “No betting on wars or deaths and no politics.”
Her body, her choice. While the female body is beautiful in all its many forms, Sweeney’s sexualization of her own body for the male gaze sets up potentially unhealthy standards for women and girls and communicates potentially unhealthy ideas to men.
Women can pose nude, wear whatever they want, play sports without being sexualized by the world around them because our bodies are not inherently sinful. God has created us in the image of God’s own self, and we are very good. In that inherent goodness we walk and live and move through the world in wonderful bodies that embrace our families, work hard at our jobs, play sports, plant gardens and paint paintings. We are humans and deserve to be treated as such.
Julia Goldie Day is an ordained minister within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and lives in Memphis, Tenn. She is a painter and proud mother to Jasper, Barak and Jillian. Learn more at her website or follow her on socials @JuliaGoldieDay.