Sydney Sweeny Naked Advert - athletes reaction correct or an over reaction that gives the advert a lot more publicity?

[mids2019]

Personally I think a naked actress with sports equipment is a bit tacky and obviously aimed at men but I don't know if it was a massive affront to women athletes? Sydney wasn't pretending to be an athlete and the athletics paraphernalia was to advertise sports betting......not my cup of tea but I don't see how it was diminishing womens sport really

I get what people are talking about Calvin Klein ads and David Beckham and the Nike adverts with Dylan.... But that's not quite the same because those are clothing adverts. So on the one hand you can make the argument many people want the underwear they buy to make them look sexy/attractive (not everyone needs to buy it with that in mind but if you do you do). But more importantly, there is something much more predatory about gambling that pretends it isn't a gambling (it's a prediction market) and I do judge celebrities who push it. That includes male celebrities who aren't naked/acting sexy but are very rich men preying on their fans admiration for them to make more money they don't need. Also often preying on young male loneliness in the tones of the adverts.

Using sex to sell gambling isn't new but it's still very icky. Especially because it's done with a sort of wink wink, the prudish woke brigade won't like this but you guys understand. Even while actually they are being manipulated into wasting their time and money on sports betting. Which is also ruining sports by the way.

I know adults have a choice not to be manipulated, but gambling is so predatory and kills people. And it's being very deliberately targeted towards young men and towards lonely young men. While alsoselling the fact that it's objectifying women and this will piss women off as a plus. I can completely judge Sydney Sweeny for this.

The "hahahaha this will piss the wokesters off" tone is just capitalising on the power of the culture wars bandwagon/divisiveness in America at the moment. While at the same time making it worse (or trying to if the advert is successful). It's just a really bleak way to make money.

I’m not sure why SS is getting ALL of the flack. It’s not as if she came up with the advertising strategy.

@Persephonia1966I think it’s far more insidious that gambling has been legitimised by all the adverts on telly “catch up with your friends” narrative etc & football club sponsorship.

Plus lots of male celebs promote gambling but they don’t seem to get much criticism

I actually think your objection is much stronger case than the one that seems to be making headlines.

This.

Women athletes come in a range of body shapes, and many have been body shamed for not being the svelte / curvaceous / whatever shape men think they should look like.

Rebecca Adlington has been quite vocal about this in the past.

Yes! Those adverts are absolutely preying on loneliness. There is something so bleak and distopian. I do judge the male celebrities who do it and agree there is a double standard. But maybe we fix that by also criticising the men as well as SS.

@Persephonia1966but we don’t criticise them do we? Colleen Rooney is in one with Danny Dyer, she certainly doesn’t need the money but I have not heard any criticism. I’m not saying SS doesn’t deserve some criticism but I feel she gets a completely disproportionate amount.

I am glad to hear she is a part owner of the company and thus no doubt making a fortune off it. Far better than woman being exploited to make men rich.

Yes athletes don’t look like this. Even SS doesn’t look like this! It took me ages to realise it was the same person who played nicks wife in the handmaids tale. She looks pretty different with her breast implants and dyed blond hair (not sure if she has had any other plastic surgery or “improvements”. Add to that the no doubt airbrushing or whatever it is they do and I’m quite sure no woman let alone a serious athlete looks like this.

Will she be the last silly woman to degrade herself to make money and/or get attention. I doubt it. Yes it’s without a doubt disappointing to see this but as someone has already said their target audience is those who gamble. It’s not aimed at healthy, sporty, career orientated people living well. It’s aimed at those silly fools addicted to wasting their money. Gambling addicts often lead unhealthy lifestyles and most of them are probably addicted to all kinds of porn anyway as well as drinking, smoking, eating junk food. SS is simply taking advantage of the mugs.

Is it distasteful yes. SS is late twenties now so she obviously wants to make as much money as she can before she starts ageing. She obviously does not feel exploited.

The danger I always think is the tiny percentage of woman who go down this path make life harder for the 99.9% of us who wouldn’t have even considered this when we were young and beautiful. It gives men ideas about woman which don’t apply to most of us.

Most real men I think do categorise woman into ‘decent’ or ‘normal’ v the SS or only fans who are good for a shag but not suitable for marrying.
The trouble is for the youngsters they missed out on the era of courting woman. They are also bombarded with online porn, gambling and stuff generation x for example wouldn’t have seen till their thirties or forties when their brains were fully developed.

Five years from now if not sooner SS will be replaced by a newer, younger model who will no doubt go under the knife for her 10 mins of fame. SS if she is smart will have invested her money and can go and live an easy life in peace (minus her dignity and self respect of course). If she is less smart or takes the loss of attention badly she’ll go down the Katie Price route.

Either way she’ll soon be forgotten.

This. She enjoys it.

I don't agree with the nature of the ad campaign, but I especially don't like that BBC News chose to publicise it. I would not have been aware of it at all, and I'm sure many others in the UK would have been none the wiser either.
Surely this amount of free publicity is counter productive to protests against the way in which it portrays women and diminishes their contribution to sports.

I do TBH.

The worst aren't Coleen Rooney to me because even though she is well known she isn't looked up to in the way some athletes are. LeBron James for instance is advertising the same company as SS (although shock horror hes wearing clothes) and that's worse for me because he is actually really popular with kids/teens. There is more of a hero worship aspect with them. I know parasocial relationships are bad for lots of reasons but it's really cynical to exploit it to hook people on gambling. SS is also taking advantage of parasocial/in group stuff by exploiting the culture wars stuff. She isn't just a pretty woman. She's a pretty woman on their team.

It's interesting that there seems to be less female athletes (as opposed to celebs) pushing this stuff. I wonder if that's because they were less willing to do it, or because gambling companies don't see them as being as good a hook as a male athlete or a naked Sweeney. The sexualisation is another good reason to be pissed of and I would be pissed of if I was a female athlete. It is yet another way gambling is wrecking sports. But it would be unfortunate if the conversation turned to female athletes/women needing better representation in gambling ads.

She also wouldn’t be used for the advert if she didn’t have body and looks that she has

Her whole persona is based on her tits. Embarrassing but she is gathering hay while the sun shines.

Oh my god!
I have just watched it.
How utterly disgusting.
I truly hope this ad does irreparable damage to all involved.

Yes of course. That’s the point. She’s been selected as an object of desire because of her looks, and been significantly sexualised. The context chosen for the advert - women’s sports - diminishes all women in sport who have long struggled to overcome unwanted sexualisation which denigrates them and their achievements and causes considerable harm to female athletes and women’s wider participation in sport.

She shouldn’t be targeted directly though, because she’s a product of a misogynistic system and is just taking advantage of a commercial opportunity in a youth-focused culture in which her star power will also one day fade. That’s not to say she doesn’t have agency … but those more at fault are the people who created the ad.

How all these women athletes queue up to have a go at another women! I don’t care about the advert! No one would have cared much if the athletes had just turned away and said nothing. Guess what? We know what they look like. Men don’t behave like this to each other.

Its like photographers are not meant to film unflattering shots of women athletes now either. So when they wear skimpy running knickers - it’s the photographers fault when they photograph a woman in the long jump pit or coming down from
the pole vault. Women could cover up of course if they are bothered. Why draw attention to yourself if you aren’t happy with attention? Mystifies me.

I think there is something in this and athletes have come across as a little thin skinned and maybe unaware of some of the hypocrisy of many female athletes having modelling contracts where they aren't exactly unattractive and not entirely fully clothed. Of course their reaction has simply been great exposure for the gambling company involved. Often women athletes are attractive and they do exploit this in terms of marketing opportunities (similar to men).

Maybe try listening to the women athletes.

I don't get how SS taking her clothes off to advertise a gambling company is any worse than popstars prancing around nearly naked or sports stars and actresses posing with next to nothing on. I don't like any of it but think SS is getting so much flak because she is unapologetic and not seen as woke.

@concertinacornflake I think they are being rather precious and me, me, me. Serena Williams posed naked. Frankly this actress can do what she wants with her own company.

Was Brittney Spears wrong to dress as a school girl ? What about athletes modelling clothes? They are not models but they are pretending to be. Women just get nasty with another woman and frankly it’s tacky but no great crime. @mids2019is right and we don’t have to agree with athletes! Basically this comes down to boobs and who has them.

If the actress can do what she likes, the women athletes can think and say what they like.

Why do you respect one woman's rights but not others'?

I doubt she would be criticised as much if she was a fat, Hollywood would probably call her empowering.

Was Brittney Spears wrong to dress as a school girl

Being a teenage girl in the 2000s was a crazy time for being sexualised. I can remember hating wearing my school uniform to school and walking past the building site because you would always get wolf whistled and stared at. And no I wasn't even rolling my skirt up for attention it's just that 14 year old in school uniform=sexy. Happy days. I don't blame Britney Spears for this, she was a teenager at the time I think (that's what made the uniform super sexy because she almost was young enough TO be a school child herself. So hot) and controlled/treated quite badly herself. But yeah, the deliberate over sexualisation of school uniform was not a good thing. If the best comparison is Britney Spears (given how her life turned out) and school children being sexualised that's not great. I will say at least SS has more agency and isnt dressed as a sexy minor.

I was thinking of Serena too. Plenty of athletes have posed naked. And that is a sight worth seeing imo. Us mere mortals would otherwise be unlikely to ever see the human body in peak condition 😂

So I suppose that is different to SS. But then SS is just doing normal naked and that’s hardly groundbreaking. So I don’t know what the fuss is about really.