It's Just an Ad
Sydney Sweeney's new controversial ad has provoked the public eye once again, but is the backlash justified?
By: Mara Klein, Staff Writer
Sydney Sweeney's recent ad for the sports betting company, Novig, raises a certain question in my mind: are we actually defending women, or are we deciding what women are allowed to do with their own bodies?
Novig’s campaign is clearly designed to appeal to the male audience, with Sweeney appearing naked, covering up with sports equipment like footballs and basketballs. Her opening line, “Think you know sports? Prove it,” is important, as is how she says it. She is asking viewers essentially whether they know sports. She's not claiming to be an athlete. She never says she is, but she challenges the viewer, asking whether they know sports well enough to bet on them.
People argue that the ad sexualizing Sweeney sets women back in sports. Her appearance is part of the advertising strategy. The ad targets men, since they make up the majority of sports betters.
Women are constantly told to be confident and to brace themselves and to reject the idea that their worth is determined by their looks, yet she chose to use her body and her sexuality in this way when people dislike it. We can criticize an ad without criticizing the woman in it. It is her body, therefore it is her choice what she does with it.
If we are to assume Sweeney is setting women back, would the reaction be the same if another celebrity had appeared in the campaign?
ESPN did a 2009 photo shoot featuring athletes called “Bodies We Want”, which included Serena Williams in a bikini and Natasha Kai, who in one of her pictures is in nothing and only covering her breasts with her hand. This photo shoot was praised and didn't receive the same harsh criticism as the Novig ad.
The issue here isn't if Sydney Sweeney has failed women, but it's why women are expected to represent all women every single time they make a choice for themselves and their body.
There's nothing wrong with criticizing the chosen marketing choice for this ad. If you don't like the ad, don't watch it; simply just scroll past it or turn it away. Don't talk about it because that's just giving them what they want, but people may judge the advertisement before considering what it is actually trying to accomplish. Marketing-wise, the controversy could have been exactly what Novig wanted, with the ad generating a lot of publicity and has been in major headlines.
The conversation around women's bodies in sports has always been complicated. We want women to be taken seriously as athletes, but she isn't representing women athletes, and the advertisement has nothing to do with women's sports.
Sydney Sweeney is allowed to make different choices than you might have made, and you don't have to like her choices, but that doesn't mean you have to tear one woman down to build up all these other women.
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