Sydney Sweeney has an affinity for controversial advertising. After sparking discourse about eugenics for American Eagle and shilling dirty bathwater for men’s personal-care company Dr. Squatch, her efforts are now being channelled into Novig, a sports trading app.
Like her previous endorsements, this one is overtly sexual. However, this is undoubtedly her raunchiest advertisement to date, with little more than various pieces of sports equipment protecting her modesty. It was filmed while the 28-year-old actress was in Australia shooting the live-action movie Gundam alongside Noah Centineo.
The provocative montage shows Sweeney seductively posing in different athletic uniforms, including football pads and a jersey, all while repeatedly uttering the word “sports”.
“Think you know sports? Prove it. Novig is just sports. So they wanted to show? Just sports,” Sweeney says in the ad. Yes, the joke is ostensibly that there is nothing more to the campaign than sports.
But peel back the facetiousness, and the enduring commodification of the female body, packaged as provocation and sold back to us as entertainment, rears its head.
Sweeney has addressed this regressive sexualisation before, telling Variety in 2024 how comments about her body have left her feeling dehumanised. Yet, at the same time, she appears to be trying to reclaim that negativity, increasingly willing to harness the very attention she has previously criticised for her own gain.
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Back in 2022, she spoke candidly about the financial realities of being an actress in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. While Sweeney noted that she was busy with shows including Euphoria and The White Lotus, as well as the rom-com Anyone But You, she revealed that she couldn’t afford not to pursue other endeavours.
“If I just acted, I wouldn’t be able to afford my life in L.A.,” she said. “I take deals because I have to. They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals.”
For Sweeney, the calculus may very well be financial. And for brands, it is financial too. In the attention economy, Sweeney’s image is a particularly valuable commodity for marketers’. Brands like to undress her because people like to look.
It is the age-old adage that sex sells, repackaged for the viral age: provocative marketing reliably generates massive online attention, polarised public engagement and ultimately, sales.
Of the Novig ad, Sweeney said in a statement: “The campaign was about embracing a fun idea. The concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports. The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humour and a playful edge.”
There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with Sweeney choosing to participate in a provocative campaign. But the question is less about whether she should participate and more about what it means to seek autonomy within a system that has long treated women’s bodies as commodities.
Self-objectification can be a tool for reclaiming agency. To deliberately take control of the gaze, rather than simply endure it, could be seen as a form of power.
But that power exists within a system that has already taught women that their bodies are valuable because they can be looked at, desired and sold. This is the contradiction at the heart of sexualised advertising. Yes, a woman can choose how she presents her body and profit from that choice, but broader culture will continue to reduce women to bodies that can be consumed.
When objectification is rooted in the internalised ideals of sexism and misogyny that are impossible to miss in the largely patriarchal society we live in, individual agency does not necessarily dismantle the system and can, in fact, help sustain it.
Sweeney may be winning financially, but she is still playing a losing game. The more valuable women’s bodies become as commodities, the harder it becomes to separate empowerment from the very objectification that makes them profitable.
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