Why Sydney Sweeney and her double-D breasts are being hailed as proof that woke culture is dead
The first time Sydney Sweeney’s father saw her naked in a graphic sex scene on HBO’s provocative television series Euphoria, he walked out of the room.
Five years and many explicit sex scenes later, he is the proud father of one of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars, with a recent hit in rom-com Anyone But You, Spider-Man spin-off Madame Web and starring this month as a pregnant nun in horror movie Immaculate.
Still only 26, Sweeney produces her own films and is tipped to star in Marvel blockbuster Spider-Woman as well as being poised to remake Jane Fonda’s brazenly libidinous 1968 sci-fi action movie Barbarella.
But Sweeney has unexpectedly become more than an actress.
The all-American blue-eyed blonde with corn-fed curves has become a cultural phenomenon, her unashamed sexuality embraced by America’s conservative Right as proof that woke culture is dying, if not already dead.
Hailed by Republicans as the poster girl of a long overdue cultural shift away from political correctness, an incredulous headline in one of Canada’s biggest newspapers, the National Post, asked: ‘Are Sydney Sweeney’s breasts double-D harbingers of the death of woke?’
Sydney Sweeney, 26, at the Los Angeles premiere of her film Madame Web in February
The question was flung like a hand grenade into the cultural debate after Sweeney appeared on America’s prestigious comedy TV show Saturday Night Live last month in sketches that focused on her body, parodying stereotypes about her highly sexualised appearance.
According to National Post comment writer Amy Hamm: ‘We’ve spent years being chastised for desiring or admiring beauty – because beauty is rare and exclusionary, and to exclude is to hate – or so we’ve been scolded to accept by today’s diversity, equity, and inclusion fanatics. We aren’t supposed to admire Sweeney’s beauty; but we’ve done it anyways. The times, they are a-changin’.’
Anti-woke advocate Richard Hanania posted a video of Sweeney’s performance on social media, proclaiming: ‘Wokeness is dead.’
Sweeney herself claims to be mystified at 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 myself.’
Her body, and what it represents, is a hot topic of discussion from Washington DC’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s studio backlots. ‘People forget that I’m playing a character,’ she told The Hollywood Reporter. ‘They think: “Oh, she gets naked on screen, she’s a sex symbol.” And I can’t get past that.’
Sweeney as Cassie in provocative HBO series Euphoria, which won her an Emmy nomination
The star poses as she arrives at a movie awards ceremony in California in February
While embracing her body-positive apotheosis as an unapologetically sexual woman, Sweeney admits being wearied by the continual focus on her appearance. ‘Sometimes I feel beat up by it,’ she told Hollywood bible Variety last year. ‘It’s hard to sit back and watch, and not be able to stand up for yourself.’
Yet Sweeney is only the latest Hollywood star on whom America’s conservative Right has stamped their imprimatur, transforming them all into political or style icons regardless of their personal leanings.
She follows in the stilettoed footsteps of Megan Fox, Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Taylor and notably Raquel Welch, whose appearance in a fur bikini in 1966 hit One Million Years B.C. caricatured the ideal conservative woman: shapely, scantily dressed, subservient and barely speaking.
Sweeney was born far from Hollywood’s bright lights in a small town in Washington state and raised in rural Idaho, where she rarely watched TV, excelled at school and, unlike her Euphoria character Cassie, never partied.
As a pre-teen she felt ‘ostracised’ for developing breasts at a younger age than her peers, an early taste of having other people’s sexual expectations projected onto her, as in Euphoria. ‘You have a character that goes through the scrutiny of being a sexualised person at school, then an audience that does the same thing,’ she told The Sun last year.
Sydney Sweeney, left, and Brittany O'Grady in the hit drama series The White Lotus
Her strict parents were religious Christians: the kind of folk who now paradoxically criticise Euphoria for its egregious sexual displays, yet embrace Sweeney for killing woke culture.
A self-professed tomboy, she says: ‘The women in my family didn’t really wear make-up.’
Fans see the glammed-up starlet walking Hollywood red carpets, but she says: ‘In reality, Sydney Sweeney is a girl who is usually wearing no make-up, jeans and a T-shirt, and running 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, professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. ‘We really shouldn’t be surprised at the objectification of celebrities as a screen for our projections, because that’s what they’re offered up to us for in their performance of roles.
The actress starred in last year's romcom Anyone But You alongside Glen Powell
‘Sydney Sweeney’s Saturday Night Live skit was parodying the desensitisation of the male gaze and toxic masculinity, but unlike the British, Americans have an inability to see irony and parody.’
Sweeney began acting at 12. The following year her family moved to LA, supporting her Hollywood dreams. Money was tight. ‘We lived in one room,’ she recalls. ‘My mum and I shared a bed and my dad and little brother shared a sofa.’ Financial aid helped pay for her schooling and university. Yet Sweeney struggled to find acting roles and her parents divorced, filing for bankruptcy.
‘When I turned 18, I only had $800 to my name,’ she says. ‘My parents weren’t back together and there was nothing I could do to help.’
Her father, Steven, a hospitality professional, moved to a remote ranch in Mexico without internet or mobile phone service. He was shocked by his daughter’s graphic sex scenes when he first watched Euphoria. ‘My dad and grandpa turned it off and walked out,’ Sweeney admits.
She remained in LA with her mother, Lisa, a former criminal defence lawyer who quit to care for Sydney and younger brother Trent. With her recent success, Sweeney paid off her mother’s mortgage. ‘My parents sacrificed so much to support my dream and they lost so much during it,’ she says. ‘I felt a responsibility to show them that it was worth it.’ Sweeney found fame and Emmy nominations with White Lotus and Euphoria, but her family’s politics proved a distraction.
In 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 Make America Great Again-styled red baseball caps reading ‘Make Sixty Great Again’.
It hardly mattered that Sweeney has no stated political leanings. It proved a dog whistle to the American Right, who are so quick to condemn outspoken liberal actors such as Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand. Taylor Swift became a conservative punchbag when she appeared poised to endorse Joe Biden to be re-elected president.
Life in the public glare overwhelmed Sweeney, who began suffering panic attacks in 2022, thinking she was dying. ‘I was losing my s***,’ she told The Hollywood Reporter. She was forced to take a break to preserve her sanity. ‘I still can’t get my mind to shut up, and I don’t sleep.’
Her private life still invites intense scrutiny. She is engaged to her producing partner, Jonathan Davino, but in producing Anyone But You, Sweeney hired Glen Powell as her co-star, sparking rumours of an affair.
Yet America’s conservatives may be happy to learn that she shares some of their family values. ‘I always wanted to be a young mum,’ she admits. ‘I love acting... I love producing... but what’s the point if I’m not getting to share it with a family?’
Instead of family, Sweeney has been adopted by America’s Right as the unlikely antidote to rampaging political correctness.
Signalling defeat, she says: ‘There’s not anything I can do.’
