Okay, we’ve all seen it: Sydney Sweeney’s commercial for Novig.
In the advertisement for the sports platform, Sweeney appears wearing little to no clothing, concealed behind footballs and athletic apparel. Almost immediately, the commercial sparked backlash online, with critics arguing that it reduces women in sports to their bodies and “sets women’s sports back.”
And, honestly, I agree.
Female athletes have spent decades fighting to be recognized for what they can do, not what they look like. Women in sports have had to push back against an industry and culture that treat them and their bodies as entertainment.
That is why the Novig advertisement feels so frustrating to me. It is difficult not to wonder whether the company intentionally chose to use Sweeney because she has appeared in adverts of a similar style. The problem isn’t that Sweeney is attractive or chose to participate in a provocative advertisement.
The problem is the decision to use sexualized imagery in a sports advertisement at a time when female athletes are still fighting to have their athletic achievements taken seriously.
Former U.S. gymnast Gracie Kramer voiced her frustration in an Instagram story about the commercial: “I’ve spent my entire life competing in a sport where female athletes have been oversexualized, reduced to our bodies, and forced to fight to be taken seriously for what we can actually do. So to see women’s sports once again being marketed through the male gaze feels like a massive step backward. We should not have to take our clothes off to convince men that women belong in sports, or that we’re only worth watching if we’re showing enough skin.”
Although Sweeney herself is not a female athlete and the advertisement isn’t exclusively marketing women’s sports, it is still harmful to the culture of women in sports.
After all, women should have the freedom to decide how they present themselves, and Sweeney’s decision to participate does not take away from the accomplishments of female athletes.
However, this is bigger than one commercial or one celebrity. It raises a question about how women’s bodies are used to sell sports and whether, after years of pushing back against that standard, we really want to return to it.