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The Sidney Sweeney commercial.
AKA, why nutpicking is not a valid defense. And probably hasn't been in a while.
The Sidney Sweeny "Good Jeans" commercial has gone viral as many here probably know. Of course, with a commercial featuring a conventionally attractive white woman making a double entendre about how she is hot and wears cool pants was sure to be. But, perhaps more than the merits of the original commercial, the backlash to the commercial has vaulted it into an even higher tier of virility than even the most optimistic American Eagle marketers could have projected.
Of course, it is being called fascist, eugenicist, white supremacist, dog-whistling, etc. So, just about everything normally happening on the internet. Right? Well, sure there is your token tic tok users making such accusations. The usual suspects like Salon.com immediately seized upon this narrative, along with someone who is apparently famous called Doja Cat. And MSNBC to complete the set of entities that pick up anything they can regarding online outrage.
But it doesn't stop there, what one would call mainstream, respectable, left of center publications went with it. The Times, Post, and ABC all threw their hats in the outrage ring. ABC especially went deep with Good Morning America bringing on an "expert" to rail against the ad as "Nazi Propaganda" (the host's words), "The American Eugenics Movement" and "White Supremacism" (the expert's words).
Where does this leave us? For me its another data point that the accusation of "nutpicking" whenever one of these woke controversies emerges is kinda a bad faith argument to make. People who see these things aren't nutpicking, they are being presented with a lot of nuts, often in prominent positions or positions of power. This particular controversy had me feeling sympathetic cringe on behalf of the reasonable center-leftists. But then I fisk that feeling and have to ask when they are actually going to police their crazies the way the right's mainstream does. Candace Owens employment status at the Daily Wire is terminated. Tucker Carlson's status at Fox is terminated. The guys who got fired at NPR and the NYT? For NPR its the guy who was saying they were too biased towards the left. For the Times, its the guys who let a Senator write a fairly bland Op-Ed about how to police riots.
As for the politicians, most have seemingly stayed away. I doubt many will answer any questions on this directly (Democrats I mean, obviously many Republicans have already made hay with yet another unforced error by the left's activist class). The reason is clear, they know the right answer, particularly for most general elections, is to laugh at the activists and "nuts" on things like this. But they cannot actually seem to bring themselves to actually express that in public. The nuts are their staffers and their boots on the ground and so it seems keeping them happy is more important than being able to say, "sometimes its just a cute girl making a pun". I don't know what the math on this actually is, but there it is. You are what you do, and this is no longer nutpicking, its mainstream. I dont know if nutpicking was ever valid, but I don't think it can reasonably be said to still be so for this category of things.
I'm not sure how Sidney Sweeney became an icon of traditional/conventional beauty as a rebellion against the "woke"/progressive/SocJus idea of "traditional beauty standards are bigoted and oppressive." She seems like a decent-sized Hollywood star but not particularly big, and in terms of her physical features, she's definitely very attractive, but not in a way that would stand out compared to other Hollywood actresses known for their beauty or some popular Instagram model. As far as I can tell, she hasn't made any particular political or ideological statements, and she hasn't leaned into her sex appeal any more than the typical Hollywood actress would be expected to, at least until her recent promotion of that soap that was made with her bath water, which I have to believe was inspired by some female Twitch streamer selling her actual bath water like half a decade ago.
Yet, a couple years ago, I started hearing her name constantly as critics' go-to example of a conventionally attractive actress that contrasted against the looks of the types of women that "woke" creators liked to put in their films/TV shows. And even Hanania explicitly wrote about her boobs as a symbol against "wokeness" or whatever. She just seemed to come out of nowhere.
Perhaps it's just that I'm not in touch with the media she's famous for (I still haven't seen her act in anything), and she is bigger than I thought she was. And when I try to think of other famous conventionally attractive young Hollywood actresses with blonde hair and big boobs, I'm drawing a blank, so maybe she really is the best choice for that icon.
In any case, I'm happy for her that she seems to be doing a pretty good job of monetizing her sex appeal, with that soap and also with this controversial ad. Honestly, that Washington Post or ABC would join the likes of Salon in problematizing the ad is unsurprising and is probably just the new normal; as others have mentioned, "woke" isn't in decline, it's entrenched, so much so that it's become the water we're swimming in.
She's the current it-girl, and it's been a little while since one was blonde and non-apologetic about being herself. At least that's my sense; I don't follow acting particularly closely.
That may well be a significant factor- relative political silence codes as conservative (ish) in a field overflowing with people eager to make unnecessary statements. Plus she does MMA and restored a vintage Bronco.
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Sweeney stands out because she is voluptuous instead of reserved, and has doe eyes instead of an intense, piercing gaze. That latter part is the more important bit. She's the rare Hollywood woman who men look at and assume she wouldn't be a massive bitch in the unlikely event that they ever managed to get her romantic attention.
I don't really know anything about her but I finally watched some of these ads. Goddamn. This is spot on. She's not like, supermodel hot but she does come across as extremely approachable and fun to be around which makes it 10/10.
My favorite one is this ASMR(!) version: https://youtube.com/watch?v=g3jeFzrFllM?si=0H7zCswwtKLSLfPT
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Maybe large, natural breasts are conservative now?
In a similar spirit to conservatives being liberals 20 years behind, the morphing from tits-and-beer liberalism (RIP) to barstool conservatism- yes.
Now resisting to do another dive through the Kontext archive. Some good commentary in there before he (probably) got that brain tumor.
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Only insofar as 'conservative' hides 'what men want', and only then insofar as 'what men want' is more acceptable than it was 5-10 years ago.
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I think it started with her wholesome(-seeming, I didn't see it) "Anyone But You" movie from yea, a couple years ago. Like an Abercrombie & Fitch couple starring.
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