Hollywood’s gossip class can’t stop pretending to be shocked that Sydney Sweeney refuses to behave like a hostage. Her new film Christy opened last weekend to soft box office numbers, and that was all the excuse the entertainment press needed to pounce. To them, the problem isn’t the movie. It’s the actress. They’re rooting for her flops the same way a high school mean girls clique roots against the homecoming queen who doesn’t sit at their lunch table.
BBC’s culture critic said that Sweeney’s off-screen image distracted them from the film itself as it gave just two stars, saying that it was “impossible to forget that she is Sydney Sweeney in the cliché-ridden biopic Christy, as our hyperawareness of her off-screen image distracts us from what’s going on in the film… Sweeney is the main reason anyone is paying attention to the project, but her own high-profile celebrity makes it difficult to believe her as the character. Can she ever escape the real-life chatter around her?’
Sweeney’s big crime? She doesn’t insult Donald Trump. She doesn’t apologize for her skin color. She doesn’t fake outrage about whatever “issue” Hollywood is hyperventilating about this week. That quiet independence makes her radioactive to people who think dissent means you voted for someone they don’t like.
See Also: The GQ Interview that Backfired on All of Sydney Sweeney’s Critics
Much of this recent hysteria traces back to her American Eagle jeans campaign. Remember “good genes”? A simple tagline for denim had the self-appointed thought police clutching their soy lattes and shrieking about “white supremacy” and “eugenics.” To normal people, that ad was just a jeans commercial. To the creative class, it was apparently the Reichstag fire. Sweeney didn’t roll over or issue the usual twelve-part apology tour. She simply ignored them.
That kind of calm makes activists insane because they feed on guilt, and she gave them none.
The comparisons between the American Eagle ad and eugenics were ridiculous on their face, but when President Trump entered the chat to praise Sweeney on Truth Social, saying “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there,” Trump wrote. “It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are ‘flying off the shelves.’ Go get ‘em Sydney!”
Before that incident, it was a birthday party scandal. Her mother wore a red hat reading “Make 60 Great Again,” a lighthearted family joke. But the wokescolds immediately screamed that it was a veiled endorsement of Donald Trump. You could almost hear editors salivating as they mashed out think pieces about “coded messages.” The rest of America saw a cute family picture. Hollywood saw ideological blasphemy.
Sydney defended herself from accusations she was Right-wing in 2022, after she posted snaps of her mother’s birthday party guests wearing MAGA-inspired hatsThat’s the real reason they keep circling her career like vultures. Christy, the film itself, is not some disaster. It’s a heartfelt biopic about boxer Christy Martin, and audiences love it. The movie holds an audience score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a respectable B+ Cinemascore, which is better than another recent biopic Smashing Machine which scored a B-. But for the industry press, numbers only matter when they can weaponize them against a woman who refuses to kneel.
Even former Batwoman actress Ruby Rose joined the pile-on. The CW’s 2020 Batwoman actress recently lashed out at Sydney Sweeney, blaming the Christy star for the movie’s dismal box office performance and calling her a “cretin.” In the diatribe below, Rose revealed that she was attached to play a character in an earlier version of the project
“The original Christy Martin script was incredible. Life changing. I was attached to play Cherry,” Rose posted on Threads. “Everyone had experience with the core material. Most of us were actually gay. It’s part of why I stayed in acting. Losing roles happens all the time. For her PR to talk about it flopping and saying SS did it for the ‘people.’ None of ‘the people’ want to see someone who hates them, parading around pretending to be us. You’re a cretin and you ruined the film. Period. Christy deserved better.”
When did Sweeney ever indicate that she “hates gay people”? No idea. However, in response to the poor opening, Sweeney posted on her social media that”we don’t always just make art for numbers, we make it for impact. and christy has been the most impactful project of my life.”
When Dwayne Johnson’s recent biopic The Smashing Machine opened slow, they called it “a promising start.” When Sweeney’s Christy did the same, they said she was “slipping.” What changed? It’s not talent. It’s ideology. Johnson plays ball; Sweeney just plays her part.
These kinds of smears also insult the viewers. Self-absorbed haters like Rose, and biased journalists think people can’t separate politics from art. Meanwhile, the fans of Sweeney films have no trouble doing that. They filled theaters for Anyone but You, which made over $220 million, and flocked to her horror hit Immaculate, which she also produced.
Related: Sydney Sweeney’s “Great Jeans” Campaign Proves Common Sense Is Back in Style
The media’s vendetta says everything about them and nothing about her. They’re fine with actresses pretending to care about causes as long as they never think for themselves. They’re fine with “diversity” unless it includes opinions they don’t control. Sydney Sweeney’s refusal to play that humiliating game is what truly drives them up the wall. She doesn’t go on political rants. And she doesn’t grovel. She just keeps working and all the while being cool, unbothered, and perfectly aware that the loudest critics in Hollywood are mostly terrified of women who don’t need their approval.
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