Online Reporter
LONDON. – When was the last time you played basketball naked, and found yourself perched precariously on the hoop?
Or played pool, also nude, and clambered aboard the table mid-frame to stare moodily at the camera?
What about tennis? Don’t we all play a quick three sets topless, because nothing says “forty-love” better than two unrestrained double D’s penduluming about.
The questions are for LADIES around the world.
Sydney Sweeney’s latest advert, for an American betting company, has gone viral with an array of professional athletes slamming the Hollywood actress for sexualising women in sport.
If you Google the video, you’ll see what I mean. It’s as bad, if not worse, than I described.
“Soft porn,” if you’re being all Mary Whitehouse about it.
Team GB sprinter Amy Hunt took a direct swipe at the Hollywood star live on TV after setting a personal best at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, in Budapest, saying: “Sydney Sweeney, this is what women’s sport looks like!”
Amy Hunt
Speaking on Good Morning Britain, the sprinter expressed concern over how such imagery might impact future athletes.
“I think when we’re trying to provide role models for young people and young women in sport, we really want to show that it’s about what your body can do, not so much what it looks like,” Hunt said.
Highlighting figures showing nearly two-thirds of girls abandon exercise in their early teens, Hunt stressed the importance of removing obstacles to participation.
“I think when we see the the stats of 64 per cent of young girls drop out of exercise and sport before they reach the age of 16, we don’t need to place any kind of barrier whatsoever in their way in terms of providing the opportunity and the empowerment for them to still exercise, whatever that looks like, professional or kind of just going to do a ParkRun with your friends.
“So it’s about empowering young girls and young women and young people to show that you really can just get out there and you don’t have to worry what you look like, you don’t have to worry about what you’re wearing.
“Sport, it’s not pretty, and I think that’s the thing to get to the level that we’re at.
“It’s shown to people that being aspirational and trying to be elite is something amazing, and you should really want to be the best version of yourself you can be.
“And that doesn’t always look attractive, and that doesn’t always look nice. Sometimes it looks like throwing up in the corner of the track, or I’ve had sessions this year where I’ve been crying afterwards.”However, Hunt feels the positive response from female competitors speaking out has already surpassed any potential harm.
“I think the reaction has almost outweighed the moment because the first thing I saw was all of the positive compilations of women in sport,” she added.
“It’s actually kind of moved. It’s separated itself from the moment entirely, and it’s not anything personal against that actress.
“It’s more the kind of intention, and it’s just moved into a completely different spin now, where we’re able to kind of have all these different things celebrating women’s sport.”
British running influencer Mary McCarthy made a punchy video slamming Sydney, saying: “We need role models saying, ‘it’s cool to be an athlete’.” She also reminded us that 90 percent of girls drop out of sport by the age of 16.
Former England rugby player and World Cup winner, Kat Merchant, who now does brilliant work as a body-positive motivational PT, posted: “Sydney Sweeney does not represent women in sport,” alongside a powerful montage of the Red Roses.
In fact, TikTok and Instagram have been flooded over the past 48 hours with fit, inspirational women athletes — some pro, some not — playing sport. So, really, job done.
And isn’t it somewhat counter-intuitive to pitch women against women. Or, indeed, women against woman.
This is game, set and match, Ms Sweeney and betting firm, Novig — a company that, until last week, very few people outside employee relatives had probably ever heard of.
Love, loathe or fancy her — and, predictably, lots of men do — Sydney is one smart, fiercely ambitious cookie, and playing to her strengths.
Sure, her strengths may be pneumatic rather than, say, a 70kg bench-press, or a sub 17-minute 5k. But just like a professional athlete she realises her God-given natural assets may not be in peak condition in 40 years’ time.
Like a top-level footballer, then, she realises her career may well be short and sweet, and is making hay while she can.
Of course, the Euphoria actress has form for this sort of stuff, finding herself in hot water last year after promoting American Eagle’s “great jeans” campaign.
In a now-deleted video, she cooed: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality, and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.”
Did the outrage go on to hinder Sydney’s career? Of course not. And here we are now, months later, talking about her again.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Crucially, and once more, one in the net for Sydney; she owns an equity stake in the company, meaning the more controversy this ad stokes, the more it gets shared, and the more she coins it in.
Cleverly, on Sunday night, the actress — who, two years ago, claimed she felt “dehumanised” when people sexualise her body — uploaded a collection of images featuring some of the biggest names in sports who have also posed nude/nearly nude for shoots and campaigns.
They included Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Megan Rapinoe, and Caroline Wozniacki.
No words needed — Sydney had made her point.
Clearly now OK with the whole dehumanising thing, there was only ever going to be one winner here: Sydney. – Sun Club/Yahoo
