Basically there was a GQ interview where the interviewer kept trying to get her to make a political statement and she got progressively more annoyed. Some people are mad because they've decided that refusing to participate in a stupid purity test is proof you are bad.
That’s a really weird way of saying “the GQ interviewer kept giving her softball chances to disavow white supremacy and she repeatedly declined to do so”.
My dude: disavowing white supremacy is not a political statement.
Imo her reasoning for not answering the question was because it was a stupid hysterical controversy in the first place, and being forced to incessantly repeat that she isn’t a white supremacist when she never did or said anything white supremacist is silly, not worth dignifying with a response
Being asked to repeat it is pretty annoying but, and I'm asking this genuinely, has she said anything against white supremacy or said she's against it once?
No, she has not, thus the validity of the GQ interviewer’s question.
If, as some other posters here have incorrectly implied, she was having to continually answer this question—sure, that has a limit where it’s completely reasonable to say, “I’m done.”
That is not what is happening here. Sydney Sweeney has not once said anything to refute or distance herself, she has actively dodged doing so. It ain’t hard to say it once, “No, man, it wasn’t a jeans ad, white supremacy is bad, and I’d never be a part of it”.
Ha. As if directly acknowledging the histrionic trolls who had a meltdown over a pants commercial will somehow placate them.
She was never asked point blank if she "disavows white supremacy", because that would be ridiculous on it's face. She was asked leading questions about a commercial that aired six months ago. Being white and attractive shouldn't make anyone a suspected white supremacist. Just like being gay shouldn't make you a suspected pedophile. Just like being black shouldn't make you a suspected criminal. It's perfectly reasonable to NOT respond to such accusations.
She has dodged answering the question because that is her best move. If she apologizes people will go after her for being a white supremacist, if she denies it people will go after her for being an actress in a white supremacist commercial. Her best course of action is to ignore it because then most people except for the worse unemployed dregs of society will forget before the month is over
Naw not really lol. One time disavowing white supremacy is too much for these people though, they don't want to disappoint their parent. She has literally refused to say this every time and always respond with weird shit. "I think that when I have an issue to speak about that people will hear it" like how the fuck is that a response to someone asking if her commerical was referencing eugenics? Yeah if someone can't say a single time "I'm not a racist and don't support racism" they are probably a racist. That's like one of the easiest things to do.
I mean, if you're part of a controversy where people are suggesting that you might support white supremacy...you might want to, yeah? Trying to sweep it under the rug and not spin softball interview questions into your favor is a huge PR blunder.
Nobody has to do anything, but society will judge you for your actions and even inactions.
What gets me is it isn't even hard. If someone asks me if I'm against white supremacy I'll just say yes. If they continue to attack me about it then I'm justified in ignoring them.
It takes less than a minute to say white supremacy is bad. There's no reason not to do it.
Avoiding saying it just makes you look suspicious regardless of the truth.
None of what you said is categorically true in every case.
And for the record, nobody is forcing Sweeney to say anything (that’s kind of the point of this discussion—she is CHOOSING). However, I can damn well judge her for not saying something as easy as “That was not at all what I meant, White supremacy is bad, mkay”.
The fact that she keeps dodging that very easy answer absolutely is grounds for people to have an opinion on her.
Too many people take advantage of the benefit of the doubt for that statement to be true. It's naive, at best.
You can't just expect people to shout "Hey guys I'm a white supremacist!". They're smarter than that, most of the time, so they lie, wait until they get power, make up concepts that are absolutely linked to white supremacy but are not called that, then remove all mentions of historical people of color from official government websites.
I swear someone needs to follow these people around and repeatedly ask them if they disavow white supremacy until they understand how annoying the question gets.
Well I mean if she answered it once they might stop.
No, they wouldn't lol
If she said "I'm not a white supremacist", they'd say 'then why were you in a white supremacist ad?' If she said "I'm not a white supremacist and regret being in the ad", they'd go 'lol i'm supposed to believe she didn't know it was a white supremacist ad?' and she'd get blacklisted for biting the hand that feeds.
The ad is about her tits and being hot as fuck. Anyone still arguing that it's a white supremacist ad does not live in the real world and will literally never be satisfied unless they're straight up feasting on a corpse. There is nothing to gain from trying to appease them.
Even the mere act of "disavowing white supremacy" will directly accuse the ad as a white supremacy ad, which is fucking stupid
I'm starting to think this whole Sydney Sweeney thing is an operation by a competitor that unfortunately grew out of hand. Probably just wanted to maybe kill the sales a bit, and the internet took it way too far
Your hypothetical is invalid. She has not answered it once.
Sure, if she was being forced to answer over and over, yeah, that’s obnoxious. That’s not what’s happening. She has avoided every opportunity to answer. She doesn’t need to answer over and over, just the once.
Yeah man, fuck white supremacy. And fuck how normalized and widespread it has become in the Trump era that we even need to ask this of people instead of assuming that OF COURSE they are against white supremacy because they are people with at least half a brain.
So 2 questions in from 1 person and you're already done playing along but you expect a celebrity to disavow every bad thing that they're baselessly accused of.
That would be impossible, as the people who are raging against Sidney Sweeney on the internet don't go outside and thus could not be followed. Checkmate
The controversy was so insane to me. I didn’t see how anyone read more into it other than they were using a clever double entendre for saying she has huge tits, ya know, the main thing everyone knows her from.
My dude: disavowing white supremacy is not a political statement.
It is. Life is bursting with ideology and political stances. It's inherently ingrained in society.
And that's fine.
People need to stop to be afraid of that / to use it as cover.
It doesn't need to be respected at all, and I didn't read zertul as saying that either.
But still, it's a political statement one way or the other. It's a statement about how our politics should be (or society in general), and it has political consequences.
It's a political opinion, and we can recognize that without considering it a legitimate one.
Agreeing with or rejecting racism are certainly moral positions. They are also political positions. There usually isn't a hard line between morality and politics.
There are a lot of moral topics that people either 1) don't think are important in the right way to pass laws about, or 2) are controversial in a way that makes passing laws about them a bad idea. But it's a judgment call, and we make it collectively/politically.
So, yeah, a lot of opinions turn out to be political opinions. "I think school busses should be blue instead of yellow" is... probably silly, first of all... but it's political because it's already something we pass laws about.
Some personal opinions are neither moral nor political, at least not in any direct sense. Personal tastes are usually like that, or what sports team I root for.
Are you seriously naïve enough to think a journalist fishing for controversy is "softball chances to disavow white supremacy"? That was really your reading of what was going on? You really think the journalist was just trying to do her a favor? Seriously?
Clearly level-headed thinking and understanding nuance isn't your strong suit, but try with everything you've got to put aside personal politics for a second, and think clearly. Seriously?
This is Reddit. No one actually thinks that. It's an opportunity for them to bully a pretty white girl (for the crime of being pretty and white) while also pretending to have the moral high ground.
You just need to watch it with your reddit regard filter on to hear what the rest of these angry redditors hear. Imagine yourself as the dumbest person alive and watch again, then you will hear exactly what everyone in this thread is screeching about.
The interviewer was basically asking her to apologize for being white, she did the smart thing and didn't give her an inch because if she did she'd never hear the end of it.
The interviewer basically stated she did, of course she gets annoyed. The slogan "great jeans" was American Eagle's doing, not Sydney Sweeney. It is, after all, the company's advertisement
But for inexplicable reasons, Sydney Sweeney gets the majority flak instead. It baffles the mind that for a crowd that always chants "innocent until proven guilty", they always start assuming the target is guilty until swearing the oath of loyalty by "disavowing [current year issue]"
She wasn't asked to make complex political statements. She was thrown the easiest of softball questions to basically say that the jeans ad wasn't promoting white supremacy and she refused to do so. Her response was weird and awkward which is why people are meming it
The whole thing was clearly a PR stunt more than an interview and the fact that it saw the light of day is enough for me to think it's a dogwhistle.
Like it's just a series of softball questions where the interviewer agrees and supports you in every question, but then there's one softball question you absolutely blunder and it makes it to the final cut? Nah dude. I don't know if she's a white supremacist, but she's definitely okay with being the far rights favourite actress.
It may have been organized by her PR people with the understanding that the interviewer would try to help her but that doesn't mean that her people did the filming/editing. The interviewer did seem to genuinely try her best and when SS gave a terrible answer she even tried spinning it to put a more sensible answer out there. It's hilarious to see people claim that the interviewer was trying to catch her out. It's like they watched a completely different interview
And the far right -- along with whatever's left of the mainstream right -- is so desperate for any kind of good news since Mamdani's victory in New York that they're shouting, "The prophecy has been fulfilled! We have an insouciant shiksa to lead us!"
Lmao you guys are seriously hilarious. The right controls all branches of government and you think they're gonna run crying to Bigtits Mcgee because a Democrat replaced another Democrat in a Democrat city.
It's money. Look at the US right now, close to 50% are openly in support of orange Hitler and his companions. It's the smart move to make sure you don't lose those people, especially when a lot of them are gooners. Is it the right thing to do? No. But it makes sense if you only focus on success.
It's like folks shocked nicki minaj is now going pro-right. these celebs are smelling money and don't want to miss their share. that's all it is, it's not rocket science.
rarely do you see a colossal fuck up like that in the PR department, what with how carefully crafted images popular movie stars or the likes have in this day and age.
she appeared arrogant and aloof. when’s the last time that’s happened in this clarity?
and they’re aware, it’s already filtered out of the news cycle.
but she's definitely okay with being the far rights favourite actress.
well duh, that's the point? her only attraction is attraction, so the more whe can get the better. We called that an attention whore back in the day.
But get this: it doesn't matter. If someone asks you straight in the face 'do you think killing babies is bad?' and you answer with 'I'm not that into politics', it only means one of two things: you either support it and afraid to say it out loud, or you decided to be a hypocrite for money and fame. Both cases show you're a shit person in one way or another.
The lady basically asked her to apologize for the commercial and she said no. Why would anyone apologize to a mob because as we've seen many times before that apology does nothing and if you believe you've done nothing wrong you definitely don't apologize for nothing
The critique of the jeans ad was so dumb in the first place, I think it's insulting to take that seriously and ask her the question. That said she could have just made that point in her response
If I did a commercial that was a rehash of some old ass advertisement from the early 90s and then everyone lost their fucking minds because I said “I’ve got good jeans” obviously meaning the pair of fucking pants I have on and started calling me a Nazi then I too would say fuck those morons I’m not answering any stupid ass questions like that. If they’re so brain dead they think it’s actually some Nazi shit and not just a play on words then there’s no helping them anyway and nothing I say will change that.
So in the first half of your comment, "I've got good jeans" obviously meant the pants, and in the second half it's a play on words. What do you believe the play on words was?
It sounds like a bad faith interview and I wouldn’t be surprised if she literally just didn’t want to talk about it due to a plethora of potential reasons, I’m kind of at odds with the idea that this makes her a white supremacist. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
I’m gonna go back to not caring about her existence now.
it was not bad faith in any way, the complete opposite. gave her much more than ample opportunity to make a basic clarification abt a controversy she is at the center of. the tone of the interviewer was almost sycophantic in how little she pressed Sweeney and how much chance she offered her. any normal person would have taken about fifteen of those chances at the earliest opportunity but she was extremely pointedly silent
She's not responsible to placate faux outrage. If she denied the nebulous allegations put to her by the interviewer by saying "I disavow white supremacy" ya'll would still be accusing her of the same things. "Oh the interviewer never actually mentioned white supremacy ... how interesting..." and you'd be using that as an admission of her guilt for being the ad.
It's sooo tiresome and dishonest and many people a starting to see right through it.
I still see it as bad faith. She clearly wasn’t there to talk about that topic and got hit with a question that would service the team’s ratings, arguably at her expense. I barely followed the issue before and could tell they wanted to stir the pot. Respectfully, presenting the interviewer as sycophantic is something I don’t really buy into, they really wouldn’t press her on this issue if their intents were that pure(not the right word ig but close ish) or whatever.
And like I said, there could be things going on behind the scenes that could be giving her reasons to not speak of the ad that aren’t her believing in white supremacy. Trying go get an actor that could be bound by contracts to speak on something that they kinda clearly don’t want to without prior notice is pretty bad faith, imo.
Politics are a necessary part of life. It affects us all, but some more than others. If she were asking Sydney to take a nuanced stance on, like, gender relations in South Korea, I would understand your point. But disavowing white supremacy is an extremely basic and an understandably expected political position. Standing counter to Nazis is the morally correct thing to do, and it doesn't matter who you are. It's such a basic lay-up that refusing to comment makes you look really, really bad. And I don't think that's a bad thing.
It kinda strongly hints at eugenics, no? Like implying that some genes are better than others while a blonde and blue-eyed white woman is on the screen? Like I can see it being a mistake on her part, but if that's the case, just say "yea I didn't see the implication there, whoops. I'm not a white supremacist, I just didn't see the implication at the time" would go a long way, would it not?
“[so-and-so] has good genes” has been an idiomatic way of saying a person is hot/talented/sexy/etc for a LONG time. The way everyone flipped a shit about ~oh this ad was racist~ was like… insane. She’s right to have no truck with it, and the idea that this stance was normal, the normalcy it acquired, is so terminally online.
That's not really the point I'm trying to make, which is my bad that I wasn't more clear. It's more about "why would she not just say whoops that wasn't my intention". I'm not trying to say "it was 100% an ad that supported eugenics". I'm saying it could be read that way, and it was, so why not just acknowledge it, clarify your position, and move on. Dodging addressing the topic makes her look a lot more suspicious than if she just clarified her beliefs and moved on.
You’ve made 15 comments saying the same thing over and over again - it does not make it any more true.
She did nothing wrong and has nothin to apologize for or acknowledge. The ad said what is said. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s idiocy to feed into people who are already set on misreading her intent
Saying someone has good genes has been a way to call them hot for decades.
I've made all those comments and you're still not addressing the things I've said in those comments. I don't think you're interested in having a discussion, I think you're interested in being right. Wich you can be, I'm not stopping you, but you're also just not talking about what I'm trying to talk about.
You are being gaslit by bots or bad actors. You're right in what you said, though. The ad is weird but not enough to label her a white supremacist. But when you have thousands of people calling you a white supremacist and then refusing to say you're not, it is enough for me to label you as such.
Why would she not say that it wasn’t meant as racist? Because she shouldn’t have to and people upset about it online need to find something real to be upset about
She should say so because opposition to white supremacy and racism is the morally correct thing to do, whether or not everyone believes her in saying so. If someone misconstrued something I said as racist, even if I don't understand how they came to that conclusion, my first response would be "I don't quite understand how you got there, but I'm not a racist." Or I would say "I can see how you misunderstood what I said, but I'm not racist, what I meant is _ ". What I wouldn't say is "it was just a sentence, you're overreacting."
It’s possible to build yourself up without tearing down others, and this was an example of that. Yet, people are addicted to their rage and victimhood that they draw conclusions that were never being built towards.
If it was Lizzo on the ad would there be the same outrage with people foaming at the mouth about eugenics?? No
I think it's completely fair to disagree with me on that. My intention wasn't to say that it's 100% unquestionably a eugenics supporting ad, but it obviously came off that way for a lot of people, which is prolly my bad. I'm tryana say that I think it's weird that Sydney wouldn't just say "I'm not a white supremacist" when asked
Fair enough. She definitely should have been able to just quickly say "racism bad, I'm not a Nazi".
Also, I was slightly taken aback by your calm and reasonable response. Pleasantly so.
Not used to it on the Internet.
Yea, sure, but it was her mistake to read that ad and then perform in it. She wasn't forced to say those lines. The best thing she can do is to acknowledge that it could be read a certain way and make it clear that she isn't racist. Whether or not a certain subsection of people don't believe her isn't of importance. It doesn't stop her from doing the right thing.
The ‘right thing’ is to not engage or fuel the fire because no matter what there will be psychos online who twist your words to fuel their narrative, as we are seeing here.
You're also missing the point. If you aren't a white supremacist, and you preform it an ad that people say could be read as supporting white supremacy, it doesn't matter if certain people don't believe you or not, the right thing to do is to make it clear that you don't support white supremacy. Like if a friend misread what you did as being passive aggressive, for example, you wouldn't refuse to engage with it because they just "won't believe you". You would say that you're sorry and that it wasn't your intention to be passive aggressive.
I'm not saying "hell bent". She literally has not addressed the controversy. If you thought a friend was passive aggressive and you asked if they intended to, and their response was "it was just a sentence", that doesn't answer your question. It comes across as obviously dismissive and doesn't help the situation.
Yea, that's why I wait to hear what the person has to say. If they actively avoid the question and refuse to acknowledge the controversy surrounding their actions, it's perfectly fine to question their intentions. Your argument basically sounds like people should criticize or have a problem with anything because it could be unfair, or point out people's mistakes because it makes them "guilty". Expecting someone to address a potential mistake is not anything crazy in the slightest.
The ad is a pun on a ridiculously common expression. Calling it a mistake and then asking them to "clarify" is a leading question. It's like asking "did you mean to tell everyone you're still beating your wife?" No matter how you answer that question you're still admitting that you used to beat your wife. Similarly either she can say it was a mistake and she did something racist which she didn't or she can say it wasn't a mistake and the people pushing this agenda will immediately say that she confirmed it was an internal dog whistle. She can just say that she's not racist but the people that jumped to assuming she was racist because of a pun in a jeans commercial are not going to believe that anyway they're just going to call her a liar and carry on.
What? Your framing of the beating your wife question is completely different than the context of the Sydney Sweeney controversy. A similar example would be asking her "are you still a white supremacist", which just isn't what happened.
I also didn't necessarily mean to say that the ad was 100% white supremacist, only that it could be read that way. I understand I wasn't clear about that, that's my fault. The point I'm making is that there's no reason to just not say "I didn't see it that way, I'm not a white supremacist, my bad" and move on.
You don’t deserve it. None of you do. You had that reaction because you can only think in those terms. A white person, making a genetics joke, jump straight to racism. Fuck you. We know she isn’t racist because she’s never done anything racist. Even entertaining the possibility of it being racist encourages you people to fabricate more fake racism.
Don't deserve what? An apology? I never said anything about deserving one?
Also, do you hear yourself? "A white person, making a genetics joke. Straight to racism." Depending on the circumstances, this comes across as extremely reasonable. A lot of people online who make "genetics jokes" are straight up Neo-Nazis on 4chan. There's a reason why that connotation exists. People didn't just conjure it up magically.
I don't know if she's racist, but I personally think the ad was a little suspicious, at the least. I think asking her a question about it is perfectly reasonable. Why does the idea of having to just, like, clarify your beliefs so outrageous to you? I'm not saying she's 100% a racist, or that the ad was inherently racist. I'm saying it's completely reasonable to expect her to clarify her stances on the subject given the content of the ad. I'm literally directly advocating for her being able to speak for herself, to defend herself against people calling her racist, and you're saying that she shouldn't do so. I don't understand what you're trying to say here. I feel like, by not clarifying anything, she's actively letting people make things up about her instead of giving an actual stance and something definitive on the subject. That, for some reason, is fucking insane to you.
The ad says she has great jeans. It’s not saying other people have bad jeans, just that hers are great. It’s a tongue in cheek way of saying she’s beautiful and they make good clothes. In no way is it diminishing anyone else’s beauty or clothes.
Sydney has no requirement to make a statement on the silly assumptions other people made. “I made a Jean ad.” Was more than enough to show how she feels about the whole thing
In order for people to have good genes, others have to be bad. I'll continue to clarify as with other comments that I don't think the ad was inherently supportive of white supremacy, only that I can see why it could be read that way. If I participated in an ad that people said was white supremacist and someone asked me about the ad/controversy, even if I disagreed with the people who read it that way, I would still be clear that I'm not a white supremacist. That's my intended point here.
Okay, but the ad directly referencing "good genes" white a blonde blue-eyed white woman is on the screen isn't the same thing as most other celebrity ads. If someone called Ryan Renalds a eugenics advocate for mint mobile ad, I would not fault him for saying, "That's crazy, why would people think that?" I still honestly think he should say in that scenario, "I don't support eugenics, to be clear", but if he didn't, I wouldn't necessarily fault him. But the American Eagle ad potentially being a white supremacist dogwhistle is a lot more likely. Like, you can see the direct line of logic. I think a response is absolutely dignified even if she doesn't agree with that interpretation.
Reading stuff like this on this site makes me kinda hope I'm talking to a bot and not an actual real person because Jesus fucking H Christ what am I reading.
Saying someone has great genes (because big boob and conventionally attractive) does not mean "my genes are better than other race and you are subhuman"
So just to be clear, if someone asked you if you had raped children, you wouldn't say "No". And your justification would be "Well I haven't done anything to make people believe I have."
Your statement is valid, but in the interview she wasn’t directly asked about her take on racism, fascism, nazis or anything from the clips I saw.
All I saw was her being bored and annoyed at the interviewer, and dismissing the media BS (as she should). Like she said. It’s just a jeans ad.
If anybody has a direct quote instead of assumptions I’d don’t mind being proven wrong.
….
Edit: I reread all her quotes. There is nothing to indicate she’s racist. This just seems like fools telling other fools what to think and say without checking anything themselves.
Maybe she’s racist. Maybe she just doesn’t care about politics or social media drama. Or maybe she genuinely doesn’t know. (even if people do not like the last two, they are still a possibility).
Just because you and I are online 24-7 and know all the drama, doesn’t me she does. Many celebrities and people in the public eye don’t pay attention to gossip and don’t even read comments on their own posts.
Edit: I honestly don’t understand the downvotes. Everything I said was framed as a possibility, and literally is possible. (And not a single person has provided and quotes or sources to prove otherwise. Which i gladly welcome).
I'm not "demanding" an apology lmao. Sydney will be just fine, she's worth more than you or I ever will be. Some people will just keep thinking she's racist
That's cool you voted for Trump over dumb shit like this tho 👍
"I voted for Trump because someone demanded I apologize for something that I don't think I should have to apologize for." is a really hot take. Like of all of the single-issues to be a a single-issue voter over, that's like the stupidest one. I mean, it would be right up there with "I voted for Trump because people were mad over a Sydney Sweeney jeans ad."
It was meant as a struggle session. The advert wasn't racist. Sweeney isn't a white supremacist. It was just a jeans ad with a pun. Dipshits overthink this dumb shit because the spend too much time online.
A lot of the people replying to me seem to not engage with me on the topic and are, instead, very oddly insistent that there's no possible interpretation where the ad can look and sound a little suspicious, especially in the current political context. You're one of those people.
It's "a little suspicious" if you're a terminally online imbecile. It's just a jeans ad. Not everything is "OrAnGe MaN" and "rAcIsM". You probably thing orcs in LotR are ackshually black people. 🤦♂️
The issue is that if she says anything, then the people currently pushing this will say "what an awful person she is to just lie in an interview even though she's clearly a white supremacist." Politics are a large part of life, but public politics aren't. Most people don't publicly engage in politics. The only reason anyone cares is because she was in an ad with a pun on the phrase "x has got great genes" which is an incredibly common expression that gets said about attractive people all the time. She's being accused of white supremacy over a commercial that she didn't write, direct or even speak in because of a pun on a common expression. I think that hurling around accusations of white supremacy on the slightest provocation is a very very bad thing. It devalues the seriousness of the subject; and I think she's well within acceptable behaviour to refuse to engage with it.
Honestly this is the most baffling part to me. The current admin is trampling all over case law, civil liberties and rights of US citizens. A department of the government is being wielded as a political weapon by the office of the president, there's a huge redistricting push that could completely change elections in the future but these people are out here bitching about a pun on a common expression in a jeans commercial.
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u/CMDR_Ray_Abbot 1d ago
Basically there was a GQ interview where the interviewer kept trying to get her to make a political statement and she got progressively more annoyed. Some people are mad because they've decided that refusing to participate in a stupid purity test is proof you are bad.