The first time Sydney Sweeney’s father saw her naked in a graphic sex scene on HBO’s provocative TV series Euphoria, he left the room.
Five years and many explicit sex scenes later, he is the proud father of one of Hollywood’s most popular rising stars, with recent success in the romantic comedy Everyone But You, the Spider-Man spin-off Madame Web and starring this month as a pregnant nun. in the horror film Immaculate.
At just 26, Sweeney produces her own films and is set to star in Marvel’s blockbuster Spider-Woman, as well as set to remake Jane Fonda’s unabashedly libidinous 1968 sci-fi action film Barbarella.
But Sweeney has unexpectedly become more than just an actress.
The blue-eyed American blonde with corn-fed curves has become a cultural phenomenon, and her brazen sexuality has been embraced by the American conservative right as proof that woke culture is dying, if not already dead.
Hailed by Republicans as the model of a cultural shift away from political correctness long overdue, an incredulous headline in one of Canada’s largest newspapers, the National Post, asked: “Are Sydney’s Double D Breasts?” Sweeney harbingers of the death of the awakening?”
Sydney Sweeney, 26, at the Los Angeles premiere of her film Madame Web in February.
The question was thrown like a hand grenade into the cultural debate after Sweeney appeared on the prestigious American television show Saturday Night Live last month in sketches that focused on her body, parodying stereotypes about her highly sexualized appearance.
According to National Post writer Amy Hamm: “We’ve spent years being scolded for desiring or admiring beauty – because beauty is rare and exclusive, and to exclude is to hate – or so today’s diversity has scolded us into acceptance.” fans of equity and inclusion. We’re not supposed to admire Sweeney’s beauty; but we’ve done it anyway. The times they Are a changing’.’
Woke advocate Richard Hanania posted a video of Sweeney’s performance on social media, proclaiming, “Wokeness is dead.”
Sweeney herself claims to be baffled by becoming the living embodiment of this political crusade, saying, “I don’t know how to explain it; I’m still trying to figure it out for myself.”
Her body, and what it represents, is a hot topic of discussion from the halls of power in Washington DC to the studios of Hollywood. “People forget that I’m playing a character,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “They think, ‘Oh, she gets naked on screen, she’s a sex symbol.’ And I can’t get over that.
Sweeney as Cassie in the provocative HBO series Euphoria, which earned her an Emmy nomination.
The star poses as she arrives at a film awards ceremony in California in February.
While she embraces her body-positive apotheosis as an unapologetically sexual woman, Sweeney admits to being tired of the continued focus on her appearance. “Sometimes I feel defeated,” she told Variety, the Hollywood bible, last year. “It’s hard to sit back and watch and not be able to defend yourself.”
However, Sweeney is just the latest Hollywood star on whom America’s conservative right has stamped its imprimatur, transforming them all into political or style icons, regardless of their personal leanings.
Follow in the stiletto-heel footsteps of Megan Fox, Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Taylor and, notably, Raquel Welch, whose fur-bikini appearance in the 1966 hit One Million Years BC caricatured the ideal conservative woman: well trained, scantily dressed, servile and barely speaking.
Sweeney was born far from the bright lights of Hollywood in a small town in Washington state and raised in rural Idaho, where she rarely watched television, excelled in school, and, unlike her Euphoria character Cassie, never I was going out to party.
As a preteen, she felt “left out” for developing breasts at a younger age than her peers, and for having an early taste of having other people’s sexual expectations projected onto her, as in Euphoria. “You have a character who goes through the scrutiny of being a sexualized person at school, and then an audience who does the same,” she told The Sun last year.
Sydney Sweeney, left, and Brittany O’Grady in the hit drama series The White Lotus
His strict parents were religious Christians: the kind of people who now, paradoxically, criticize Euphoria for its egregious sexual displays, but embrace Sweeney for killing woke culture.
A self-declared tomboy, she says, “The women in my family didn’t really wear makeup.”
Fans see the glamorous star walking Hollywood red carpets, but she says, “In reality, Sydney Sweeney is a girl who usually doesn’t wear makeup, wears jeans and a T-shirt, and runs around barefoot outside.”
She is the perfect blank canvas on which Americans can paint their cultural prejudices.
“People see what they want to see,” says Juliet Williams, a professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We should not be surprised that famous people are reified as a screen for our projections, because that is why they offer themselves to us in the performance of their roles.
The actress starred in last year’s romantic comedy Everyone But You alongside Glen Powell.
‘Sydney Sweeney’s sketch on Saturday Night Live parodied the desensitization of the male gaze and toxic masculinity, but unlike the British, Americans have an inability to see irony and parody.’
Sweeney began acting at age 12. The following year, her family moved to Los Angeles, supporting her Hollywood dreams. Money was scarce. “We lived in one room,” she remembers. “My mom and I shared a bed and my dad and my little brother shared a couch.” Financial aid helped pay for her education and college. However, Sweeney had difficulty finding acting roles and her parents divorced and declared bankruptcy.
“When I turned 18, I only had $800 to my name,” he says. “My parents weren’t back together and there was nothing I could do to help.”
His father, Steven, a hospitality professional, moved to a remote ranch in Mexico with no internet or cell phone service. He was shocked by his daughter’s graphic sex scenes when he saw Euphoria for the first time. “My dad and grandpa turned it off and left,” Sweeney admits.
She remained in Los Angeles with her mother, Lisa, a former criminal defense attorney who resigned to care for Sydney and her younger brother Trent. With her recent success, Sweeney paid off her mother’s mortgage. “My parents sacrificed a lot to support my dream and lost a lot during it,” she says. “I felt a responsibility to show them I was worth it.” Sweeney found fame and Emmy nominations with White Lotus and Euphoria, but her family’s politics proved a distraction.
In the horror film Immaculate, released this month, Sweeney plays a pregnant nun.
When Lisa celebrated her 60th birthday in 2022, critics focused on guests wearing what appeared to be Blue Lives Matter attire (a pro-police counterpoint to the Black Lives Matter campaign) and red Make-style baseball caps. America Great Again that said “Make Sixty Great.” Again’.
It mattered little that Sweeney had no declared political leanings. It turned out to be a red flag for the American right, which is quick to openly condemn liberal actors like Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand. Taylor Swift became a conservative punching bag when she appeared set to endorse Joe Biden to be re-elected president.
Life in the public eye overwhelmed Sweeney, who began suffering panic attacks in 2022, thinking he was dying. “She was losing her mind,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. She was forced to take a break to preserve her sanity. “I still can’t quiet my mind and I don’t sleep.”
His private life still invites intense scrutiny. She is engaged to her producing partner, Jonathan Davino, but upon producing Everyone But You, Sweeney cast Glen Powell as her co-star, sparking rumors of an affair.
However, American conservatives may be happy to know that she shares some of their family values. “She always wanted to be a young mother,” she admits. ‘I love acting… I love producing… but what’s the point if I can’t share it with a family?’
Instead of a family, the American right has embraced Sweeney as the unlikely antidote to sweeping political correctness.
Signaling his defeat, he says, “There’s nothing I can do.”