How Sydney Sweeney is assuming control of her image while seemingly surrendering it

Sydney Sweeney stepped into the shoes of Christy Martin, former boxer and a motivational speaker currently, for her latest turn in the sports biopic Christy.

Released November 7, the film charts the life story of “Christy Martin, the most successful female boxer of the 90s”, per IMDb.

For her performance as the athlete, which has been garnering considerable acclaim, Sweeney underwent an impressive physical transformation and suffered real blows while pretending to box as her movie’s subject — “Oh yeah, they were all real. Every fight that you see, we’re hitting each other,” she revealed in a conversation with The Guardian. “I had concussions, there were some bloody noses.”

Despite the rapidly rising star’s career ambitions – which have always been vast and great, as the actress went into producing to pursue the projects she wants to be a part of, soon after her breakout through HBO’s Euphoria – she has been inadvertently dragged into multiple discussions regarding her politics. However, Sweeney can’t be bothered any longer.

A MAGA-level conspiracy

Sydney Sweeney’s apparent controversy began as a conspiracy and crossed into the territory of truthfulness, to some extent. When the 28-year-old actress shared snaps from her mother’s 60th birthday celebrations in 2022, outrage erupted online about some of the guests sporting MAGA-style apparel at the party — the “Make America Great Again” movement being a clear cut symbol of alliance with Donald Trump and, by extension, the conservative Republican party.

At the time Sweeney responded to the criticism on X (formerly known as Twitter) by writing, “You guys this is wild. An innocent celebration for my moms milestone 60th birthday has turned into an absurd political statement, which was not the intention. Please stop making assumptions.” (Sic)

The Anyone But You star’s past scandal was reignited this year when she appeared in a denim commercial for American Eagle, the slogan of which became the tagline, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” — interpreted to be a cue about white supremacy, based in the pseudoscientific and debunked discipline of eugenics, which argues that genes determine race.

Sweeny: ‘I’m always just me’

Unlike her previous controversy, the Euphoria star has exhibited a rather mild and indifferent reaction to the current uproar.

She stated in her Guardian profile, “I think what’s interesting is I’m always myself. I’m always just me. But it’s what other people put on me that’s uncontrollable.”

For Sweeney, who once went live on Instagram to tearfully address the harsh online discourse about her “ugly” appearance in a lingerie photoshoot in 2021 — “People need to be nicer on social media because it’s really f****d up,” she had brokenly proclaimed — the recent disregard about her current scandals may seem uncharacteristic. She even turned down the chance to clarify her association with the political alignment she was linked to following the release of her ad campaign.

When asked by GQ’s Katherine Stoeffel if she wished to address “the criticism of the content, which is that maybe, specifically in this political climate, white people shouldn’t joke about genetic superiority,” Sweeney firmly replied, “I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”

It is worth noting perhaps that Sydney Sweeney’s voter allegiance was further confirmed to be towards the Republican party, in August — she was discovered as a registered Republican voter in Florida — and as opposed to her varied responses to other arguments, she never really acknowledged this development.