{"id":25317,"date":"2026-09-17T09:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T09:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/?p=25317"},"modified":"2026-09-17T09:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T09:34:14","slug":"the-weekly-vine-sydney-strawman-why-sydney-sweeney-has-become-a-rorschach-test-for-american-culture-wars-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/?p=25317","title":{"rendered":"The Weekly Vine: Sydney Strawman \u2013 why Sydney Sweeney has become a Rorschach test for American culture wars | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Weekly Vine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Note: The following excerpt is from The <\/span>Weekly Vine<\/span>, a TOI newsletter for <\/span>LinkedIn<\/a>. You can also <\/span>get it in your inbox.<\/a>Hello and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Vine.Jean Paul Sartre once said \u2013 and I am guilty of repeating this ad nauseam (pun intended) \u2013 that freedom is what you do with what\u2019s been done to you. He was wrong or misinformed because he was never married. Freedom is actually what you do with what\u2019s been done to you till you get married, after which your wife tells you what to do.I learnt that recently after a little man-scaping of my face and was told in uncertain terms that I would be in the dog house \u2013 proverbial, not the streets of urban India \u2013 till it grew back. Apparently only Messrs Cavill, Hamm and Bomer have the jawlines to keep beard-free. All other jawlines must be graced with shrubbery or be ridiculed.Marriage is full of moments like that. One came along recently when the wife asked: Who is Sydney Sweeney<\/a>? And why is everyone talking about her?It\u2019s as loaded an ontological question as one gets, and getting it wrong can turn one\u2019s marital life martial. \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d doesn\u2019t work because it\u2019s highly unlikely that any man doesn\u2019t know the Helen of the digital age.If Helen\u2019s face launched a thousand ships, Sweeney\u2019s has launched a thousand outrages, the latest being over a gambling ad which has become, as Twitter user @stepfanie put it, the \u201cfunniest stress test feminism has encountered\u201d.Feminism\u2019s basic premise \u2013 from the first wave of feminism of Ganga \u2013 shorn of any embellishment, is that it is a movement that advocates for social, political and economic equality. At least that\u2019s what one was told, but now somehow it has become about thousands of folks policing what a woman ought to do with it.That Sydney\u2019s body had taken on deeper meaning beyond its corporeal form and become a political battleground was evident in 2022 when she threw her mother a 60th birthday party where one guest wore a Blue Lives Matter T-shirt and others wore red caps that said \u201cMake Sixty Great Again\u201d. That was enough for Sweeney to be cast out of the proverbial liberal heaven by some imaginary association with the Orange One.That was the first instance of what we can call the Sydney Sweeney Rule: what Sydney Sweeney actually says is considerably less important than what everybody decides Sydney Sweeney represents.This happened with her tongue-in-cheek \u201cI have great jeans\u201d ad that some saw as Nazi propaganda \u2013 to be fair, liberals see Nazi-coded propaganda the way tech bros see AGI in everything \u2013 and now in a Novig ad, a sports betting company in which she owns equity and a stake.<\/p>\n

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To paraphrase Phoebe Buffay: A single woman deciding to take her own calls about what she does with her own body and money? We must inform the church elders. And these days the church elders are usually on Twitter.Now normally, all Sweeney outrages are limited to liberal outlets, but this time female athletes decided to join in, with Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus calling it \u201cinfuriating\u201d and a \u201ckick in the teeth\u201d; British sprinter Amy Hunt telling Sweeney: \u201cThis is what women in sport look like\u201d after winning a race.Hunt went on to argue that Sweeney\u2019s campaign could become a \u201cbarrier\u201d to girls entering or remaining in sport and that role models ought to show young women \u201cwhat your body can do, not so much what it looks like\u201d.All fine arguments except for the fact that none of them quite explains why a female athlete will decide to discontinue her passion because an actor did an ad for a company. One commenter even accused Sweeney of \u201csetting women back 100 years\u201d, which is quite a lot of civilisational damage for 60 seconds of strategically placed sporting equipment.Sweeney\u2019s response was rather more economical: she simply posted nude pictures of Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, Caroline Wozniacki and assorted male athletes from ESPN\u2019s Body Issue<\/span>.The curious thing here is how puritanical hang-ups have swapped political alliances. There was a time when complaining about how women dressed was the preserve of Conservatives. Now it\u2019s MAGA that\u2019s pro-Sweeney while liberals are frothing at the mouth over a young woman choosing whatever she wants to do with her own body.Thomas Shelby, the protagonist of Peaky Blinders<\/span>, gave us a fantastic peek into the philosophical and ontological reason capitalism remains undefeated when he pointed out: \u201cEveryone’s a w***** Grace. We just sell different parts of ourselves.\u201dThe Vine sells engagement so my bosses know that I am not wasting hours in the office.A daily labourer sells his body by picking up objects or smashing them or whatever angers Karl Marx.An athlete throws something, jumps over something, runs or tries to put a ball somewhere.A surgeon and carpenter do the same thing \u2013 when the latter isn\u2019t discovering a religion \u2013 but are paid vastly differently because their canvases are different.And yet the athlete is paid far more than the labourer. The doctor is paid more than the carpenter, while a global athlete is probably paid a lot more than the doctor too.Now one could easily argue that the doctor, carpenter or labourer does tasks that are far more important for human existence than what the athlete does, but the latter is paid top dollar simply because, at the highest level, that skillset is extremely rare. It boils down to how many people can build homes vis-\u00e0-vis how many people can make a ball dance to their tunes.<\/p>\n

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Source: Peaky Blinders <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Capitalism, unlike your mother, has never pretended to reward people according to how useful they are to society. It rewards scarcity, demand and the amount someone else is willing to pay. That is, in essence, capitalism. Which brings us to its greatest proponent: Sydney Sweeney.If a labourer can sell the strength of his back, an athlete can sell what her body can do and an actor can sell her ability to pretend to be someone else, I am not entirely sure why an adult woman selling the fact that people enjoy looking at her body suddenly requires an emergency meeting of the feminist politburo.Those acts aren\u2019t equal.Being an Olympian takes a lifetime of training, while being Sydney Sweeney also involves winning a particular genetic lottery \u2013 even though she isn\u2019t a natural blonde \u2013 as well as being in the right place at the right time and knowing what the audience wants.But the underlying capitalist transaction remains the same: I possess something people want, so what are they willing to pay for it?And Sweeney possesses perhaps the most valuable commodity of our age: attention. There are millions of models and actors on the planet, but few get the same engagement as Sweeney.And that\u2019s where the OG feminist argument walks off a cliff: if a person has true agency, no one can deem what she does with it wrong, as long as it\u2019s within the confines of the law.If one woman wants to spend her youth becoming an Olympic athlete, fantastic. If another adult woman decides she would rather start an OnlyFans account, that is on her too. She may make millions, make nothing or regret it horribly later, but consequences are part of agency. Otherwise \u201cmy body, my choice\u201d quietly becomes \u201cmy body, your approved list of choices\u201d.Perhaps the argument has never been about Sweeney in the first place, but about what we have projected on to that proverbial strawman.Perhaps the argument was never really about Sweeney in the first place. She has simply become the most famous Rorschach test of the culture wars, except instead of inkblots we have strategically placed sporting equipment.For Conservatives, Sweeney\u2019s mere existence in the limelight is proof that wokeism is dead. Liberals see it as the return of the male gaze. Athletes see decades of work being reduced to sex appeal and men, well\u2026<\/p>\n

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Everyone looks at the same woman and sees whatever they were already looking for. That is, as Sweeney would point out, a \u2018you\u2019 problem, not a \u2018me\u2019 problem.And that\u2019s why she is the perfect strawman. To quote the great philosopher Ramadhir Singh: Sabke dimaag mein apna apna Sweeney chal raha hai.Except the actual woman has understood something everybody else seems to have missed. Perhaps Akshay Kumar\u2019s password in Ajnabee<\/span> revealed it many years ago: \u201cEverything is planned.\u201dEvery time someone calls her a threat to feminism, writes that she has set women back a century, announces she has defeated wokeness or writes a 1,500-word newsletter explaining why everyone is being ridiculous, the true winner, in Ravi Shastri\u2019s words, is Sydney Sweeney.Because she has mastered the art of monetising the most fleeting thing in the modern world: attention. Novig knew that when it hired her. Sweeney got it when she took equity. News outlets know it when they put her face on a homepage. Twitter knows it when it can\u2019t stop talking about her.Even The Weekly Vine understands it because you have now spent several minutes reading about Sydney Sweeney while one insists everybody should stop projecting things on to Sydney Sweeney.Perhaps Sartre therefore gets the last laugh after all. Freedom really is what you do with what\u2019s been done to you, and Sweeney understands that better than most.We are all living in the attention economy. And it\u2019s owned by Sydney Sweeney.And to sum up for all the married men out there: seek your wife\u2019s permission before considering any facial hair changes.<\/div>\n


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The Weekly Vine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Note: The following excerpt is from The Weekly Vine, a TOI newsletter for LinkedIn. You can also get it in your inbox.Hello and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Vine.Jean Paul Sartre once said \u2013 and I am guilty of repeating this ad nauseam (pun intended) \u2013 that freedom is what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-31"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-small":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-small-tall":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-small-square":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-small-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-medium-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg","blogsy-wide":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"The Weekly Vine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Note: The following excerpt is from The Weekly Vine, a TOI newsletter for LinkedIn. You can also get it in your inbox.Hello and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Vine.Jean Paul Sartre once said \u2013 and I am guilty of repeating this ad nauseam (pun intended) \u2013 that freedom is what […]","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":1,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":9,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg",400,225,false],"medium":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg",300,169,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sydney-strawman.jpg",150,84,false]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/author\/admin"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}