America’s bittersweetheart Sydney Sweeney found herself under fire once again this week following reports that the 27-year-old actress is a registered Republican.
The Standard
The Right were thrilled. This, combined with her “All-American” looks, made her a pretty little pin-up for white, Right-wing Americans. And while Sweeney did hit out at “assumptions” that were made about her political stance after the pictures received a backlash, she stayed conspicuously clear of disclosing her own politics.
“It’s absolutely a tactic,” says celebrity PR expert Mark Borkowski, “because as soon as you disclose that in the age of culture wars, you are cannon fodder.”
Borkowski and Gamble both compare this apolitical side of Sweeney to Taylor Swift, who famously took a long time to disclose her political stance around the 2016 election, despite incessant pleas from her fans to denounce Donald Trump. At the time, PRs and critics claimed it was due to Swift wanting to capitalise on her fandom being split between both camps, and not wanting to lose half her audience.
Eventually, in a post to Instagram, Swift admitted how she had been “reluctant” to publicly voice her political opinions in the past, “but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.” She went on to reveal that she was voting for a Democrat, and encouraged her fans to educate themselves and “make your vote count.” PR wise, Swift’s image didn’t take much of a hit: she’s now more famous than ever.
Sweeney shot to fame in the aftermath of Euphoria’s second season, released in early 2022. And as with every woman who shoots to stardom, there is a mass of grasping hands ready to bring her crashing back down to earth. “Fame brings all the naysayers out,” says Borkowski, “and the way she’s gone about it has pissed off a lot of people. It’s old-fashioned because she’s using her body for publicity, when [we thought] that had died off.”
Borkowski foresees more of this political drama in Sweeney’s future, unless she finds a way to “get off the hamster wheel,” while still maintaining fame. But Sweeney stepped off the hamster wheel recently, during a breakup from her fiancé and a relatively quiet period career-wise, only to return to more politics.