How Sydney Sweeney became Hollywood’s punching bag after another box office flop
The actor was hoping for an Oscar nomination for the biopic of boxer Christy Martin, but the record-breaking flop proves the only ring she’s stepping into is the arena of online rage.
Sydney Sweeney could be a legitimate star, instead she’s Hollywood’s punching bag for those mad about everything.
Ever since the 28-year-old’s breakthrough on the edgy Netflix drama Euphoria alongside Zendaya and Jacob Elordi, the white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed actor refuses to comment publicly on politics or engage in culture wars.
Reportedly a “registered Republican”, the face of the controversial American Eagle “good genes” campaign, Sweeney is blighted by online hysteria.
If inciting outrage was an award category, she’d win.
She’s also surrounded by duds.
With what should be the easiest gig in the world – advising and shepherding talent who is beige but beautiful – those around her are failing. Badly.
Following her American Eagle jeans advertisement, her latest project has bombed – spectacularly – at the box office.
It’s her third movie that failed to break through and break the bank.
In what was predicted to generate Oscar buzz for Sweeney, Christy, a movie about the most successful female boxer in US history, debuted with a thud last weekend.
The film, for which she gained 15kg and copped a few concussions, is now one of the poorest theatrical releases ever.
Christy Martin – the inspiration for the film – was closeted for most of her life and survived an attempt on her life by her former husband and coach. She was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020.
“So deeply proud of this movie,” Sweeney wrote online. “If Christy gave even one woman the courage to take her first step toward safety, then we will have succeeded … so yes, I’m proud. Why? Because we don’t always make art for numbers, we make it for impact.”
Martin has praised Sweeney for her commitment to the project.
The majority of commentators and the social media police are, instead, celebrating her failures.
Australian VJ-turned-actor Ruby Rose is just one example. Rose, whose own career has stalled since her breakout role in Orange is the New Black, went so far as to accuse Sweeney of being homophobic for accepting the lead role in Christy.
“You’re a cretin and you ruined the film. Period. Christy deserved better,” she posted on Threads.
It got worse when Sweeney did a painful interview with GQ magazine where she stared catatonically and side stepped baited questions about the supposed jeans v genes “controversy” she has been mired in.
When asked if she’d like to address the specific criticism that “white people shouldn’t joke about genetic superiority”, Sweeney batted it away.
“I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”
Her team would have known the line of questioning would go there, so why bother putting her in the firing line again?
Clicks, not credibility, is the sad answer.
To her detractors, Sweeney is the definition of the devil in the febrile political environment of the US at the moment.
Since guests at her mother’s birthday party wore hats resembling Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again caps and starring in that commercial that carried a pun about her “great” genes earlier this year, she’s been labelled everything from “MAGA Barbie” to a racist, white supremacist who endorses eugenics.
This unseemly brouhaha is just the latest in a litany of cringeworthy incidents, from soap infused with her own bathwater to starring front and centre at the over-the-top wedding of Amazon founder, and Donald Trump supporter, Jeff Bezos in Venice.
In this day and age where being conservative is like kryptonite in the circles she lives and works in, Sweeney could perhaps take a page out of Clint Eastwood’s Republican in Hollywood handbook – just make a decent film and shut them up.
Sweeney needs to stop trying to remain relevant in the social media space.
They’re just not that into her.
If she’s really into “making an impact” with her art, then no more stupid commercials, no more interviews, stop calling the paps, shut down social media, and get to work.
They may not like you, but they’ll have to respect it.
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