Sydney Sweeney's Novig Ad Slammed by Olympic Champion — SkimNews
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- Novig's new ad starring Sydney Sweeney features deliberately erotic sports imagery, with the site's pitch that it's 'only for betting on sports — no wars, no deaths, no politics.'
- Sydney Sweeney's 'anti-woke poster-girl' persona traces to her American Eagle Outfitters 'great jeans' campaign, which many read as echoing Donald Trump's 'great genes' remark and drew accusations of a white-supremacist agenda she publicly distanced herself from by saying she was against 'divisiveness.'
- Four-time Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Ariarne Titmus criticized the campaign on Instagram as 'a kick in the face to every woman who had dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, but every woman who enjoys sports for what it really is — teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, unity.'
- The article compares Sweeney's facial expressions to a 'WikiHow gallery, how to: soft-porn' and reads her look as conveying 'hellion joy' at deliberately provoking audiences.
- The piece connects the broader controversy to a surge in people betting on deaths in Iran and Ukraine, treating Novig's 'no wars, no deaths' premise as a tacit acknowledgment of that market.
Why it matters: For Sydney Sweeney, the Novig ad reinforces her 'anti-woke poster-girl' persona since the American Eagle jeans controversy; for elite athletes like Ariarne Titmus, it prompts public pushback on the ad's framing of women in sport. Novig's 'sports only, no wars' premise also tacitly acknowledges a market in betting on deaths in Iran and Ukraine, which the piece flags as a sign of where late capitalism has arrived.
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