Sydney Sweeney and the Insecurity Industrial Complex

I didn't want to comment on this one, but oh well...

Trump: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Sweeney: Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)

Welcome back to The Red Letter.

I wanted to ignore the Sydney Sweeney discourse. I really did. It was silly. A pun.

Genes vs. jeans. Who cares? I scrolled past it, rolled my eyes, told myself I had better things to do. I’m reporting on Epstein and Maxwell. Real power. Real stakes.

But then Trump opened his mouth. “She’s hot. And Republican.”

Of course he said that, and I’m sure he was praying that it would divert attention from the Epstein scandal engulfing him.

And suddenly, I couldn’t look away. Because it wasn’t about an ad clearly designed to foment controversy. An ad that American Eagles’ marketing department calculated would not offend their consumers.

Let’s get something straight: Sydney Sweeney didn’t ask to be a flashpoint in America’s culture war. But she is one. A young, blonde, white woman at the peak of her sexual capital, and honestly, her earning potential in Hollywood too. She represents a version of womanhood that’s both coveted and cursed. And she agitates the hell out of everyone.

To women who don’t look like her, especially women who don’t fit her impossible Eurocentric mold, she can feel like a slap in the face. A reminder that we still live in a society that prizes narrow noses, wide eyes, and youth over everything else.

To women who do look like her — or did, once — she’s a symbol of the power they’re afraid they’re losing.

And to many men? She’s a fantasy. An unbothered beauty in blue jeans, posing for American Eagle, patriotic. A callback to a pre-feminist, pre-woke, pre-#MeToo America.

And now that we know she’s a Republican? She’s even better. She’s theirs.

🧨 You’ve hit the paywall.

Megyn Kelly’s plea for hotness. The coded beauty standards. Why Sydney Sweeney triggers everyone — and what it says about race, power, and nostalgia for a pre-feminist America.

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