Another Sydney Sweeney advertisement seems to have been caught in the whirlwind of internet controversy. The “Euphoria” actress’s campaign with the newly launched sports betting app, Novig, came out earlier last month. Many of you may have seen the campaign billboard in Boston during the shuttle ride to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University or even in Times Square. Even so, much of the attention came when the advertisement dropped on social media platforms.
The shocking, or perhaps not-so-surprising, factor regarding the advertisement was the nudity and sexualization of Sweeney. The actress came under fire for the commercial’s excessive nudity. Throughout the video, Sweeney is seen ‘playing sports’ in little to no clothing, from holding two American footballs in front of her breasts to ‘spinning’ a basketball while spreading her legs apart, sitting on a basketball hoop naked.
If you see only the still images from the clip or the billboards in real life, the message about what they are trying to sell is unclear. With the advertisement prioritizes the shock value and appeal of Sweeney’s body, it’s easy to forget that it’s an ad for a sports betting app.
It’s not surprising to find Sweeney profiting off her sexualized public image. From the controversial American Eagle jeans advertisement last year to the highly criticized ‘OnlyFans-ification’ of her “Euphoria” character, the actress clearly knows her public perception. The issue with the Novig advertisement isn’t simply the commodification of women — although that is an important commentary — but rather with Sweeney’s use of her image and its role in perpetuating how media portrays and perceives women.
Some may assume that the actress shouldn’t be blamed. After all, the advertisement was another paycheck, and she cannot control the way the media sexualizes her appearance. While that is true to a certain degree, Sweeney is often in control of the narrative surrounding these controversies. The relationship between the actress and Novig isn’t simply that the company hired her to shoot the advertisement. In fact, she is a strategic partner and equity holder. The campaign was a deliberate choice — Sweeney, of her own volition, chose to promote this sports betting app in this way. Furthermore, sports betting is an addictive platform that comes with major financial repercussions for users. A recently published study from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that in states that legalized sports gambling online, bankruptcies and credit card delinquencies increased by about 25%. This makes Sweeney’s choice of promoting the company — as well as being an equity holder of Novig — even more problematic.
Despite the public backlash and outrage, particularly from female athletes, the advertisement actually helped Novig gain more attention. This led their user population to climb 96%, while app downloads jumped more than 187%, according to the company’s co-founder, Jacob Fortinsky. This reflects the successful effect of the sexualization of women, particularly in the male-dominated industry of sports betting.
But what does that say about how we still cater to the male gaze?
Maybe there is a feminist way of looking at Sweeney’s actions. Perhaps she is taking control of the way men already sexualize her body by profiting off of it. But what are her choices at the expense of? Already, there is a fundamentally flawed outlook on beauty standards and representation of women in the media. A 2008 study by the University of Buffalo found that there has been a disparity between how men and women are portrayed in popular media, with the portrayal of women in particular becoming increasingly sexualized over the past several decades. In the study, they analyzed more than 1,000 images of men and women on Rolling Stone covers over the course of 43 years. They found that in the 2000s, there were 10 times more hypersexualized images of women than men and 11 times more non-sexualized images of men than of women.
Sweeney is perpetuating the commodification of women’s bodies and the reliance on the male gaze for financial gain. Her nude advertisement for Novig is offensive to many, and for good reason. Even beyond the moral qualms of promoting what essentially is a gambling app, it is the use of her physical attractiveness to lure people into a betting app that she herself is an equity holder in. This pattern of connection is striking, and the problem is that it works.
