When political arguments start using bodies as evidence, something has already gone wrong.
This week, Sydney Sweeney’s body was once again drafted into America’s culture war, this time thanks to Elon Musk.
The Tesla and X owner sparked widespread criticism after posting a series of sexualised memes responding to footage of the actor at the Los Angeles premiere of her film, The Housemaid.
Sweeney wore a low-cut white dress, so of course, the internet did what it always does.
Musk, however, escalated things by sharing an AI-generated image implying her breasts were so large they caused spinal pain, followed by another post joking about ‘double-stacked equipment.’
None of this is especially surprising. Musk has a long track record of posting in ways that blur the line between provocation and embarrassment.
What is more revealing is what came next.
The response to the posts was swift, but not as negative as one might expect. On X, users called out the strangeness of a 54-year-old billionaire publicly fixating on a woman in her twenties.
‘She’s 30 years younger than you. Weird,’ wrote @greendragonhq. Another added, ‘Elon Musk gooning over Sydney Sweeney come on man.’
But, notably, one person said: ‘This is what she gets.’
On Reddit, the criticism sharpened further. ‘Like imagine being the richest guy alive and still choosing creepy uncle at the premiere as your vibe,’ wrote user Ill-Moment-7309.
If one scrolls through comments on Musk’s posts long enough, a narrative begins to emerge. One that suggested Sweeney might not mind the comments about her body, or worse, that she deserved degradation for being a Republican.
In fact, many of the people slut shaming Sweeney’s dress choice online were people who claim to be progressive feminists.
‘She probably doesn’t care, hell she’s maga she probably loves Musk,’ one Reddit user speculated.
Another wrote: ‘I mean…she voted for women to be treated this way and she picked that dress.’
‘It doesn’t take away from the fact that those comments are massively gross,’ replied Wiggin36.
Another user, Icecreamsandwiches1, went further, pointing out the moral sleight of hand at play: ‘Misogyny from gross billionaire men is okay if it’s directed at women I don’t like hehe.’
That exchange captures the uncomfortable truth at the centre of this story: Sydney Sweeney’s body is no longer just being sexualised; it’s also being filtered through political assumptions, even by people who claim to stand against misogyny.
For much of 2024, Sweeney’s looks have been repeatedly cited as proof that ‘wokeness is dead.’ Her success, her conventional attractiveness, and her willingness to wear revealing clothes have been framed as evidence that audiences are rejecting inclusivity in favour of a return to old-fashioned Hollywood glamour.
In this telling, Sweeney’s breasts are not just breasts. They are an ideological corrective and a rebuttal to body positivity and inclusivity. They’re a sign that we can finally stop pretending beauty is subjective and go back to openly rewarding women who meet narrow, Eurocentric standards.
That argument was everywhere earlier this year, particularly after Sweeney hosted Saturday Night Live, when viral posts declared that her appearance alone marked the end of progressive cultural dominance. The logic was flimsy then and it is flimsy now, but it stuck.
This context matters because it explains why reactions to Musk’s comments became so morally inconsistent.
Sympathy, outrage, and even basic decency now seem to depend on where people think Sweeney falls on the ideological spectrum, when they were previously quick to defend her from the internet’s relentless oversexualisation of her body.
Now that she’s possibly a republican? Crickets.
This shift did not happen overnight. Earlier this year, Sweeney became the subject of intense online debate after fronting an American Eagle campaign built around the slogan ‘Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.’
The pun on ‘genes’ drew accusations of echoing eugenics rhetoric, a reaction that grew louder after reports surfaced that Sweeney was a registered Republican.
She has never publicly commented on her political views, but that did not stop others from deciding what her body represented.
Donald Trump quickly seized on the moment, praising the campaign after learning of her voter registration and using it as an opportunity to rail against ‘woke’ advertising.
In doing so, he helped recast Sweeney as a kind of conservative cultural asset, a symbol to be claimed rather than a person to be left alone.
Since then, the tone of the discourse has shifted, and the intense concern about how her body is talked about has noticeably softened in some left-leaning spaces.
The implication among even well-meaning liberals is hard to miss: If she is conservative, then the usual rules no longer apply.
Misogyny does not become acceptable because a woman might vote differently, and objectification does not become harmless because someone is assumed to be on the wrong side of the culture war. Suggesting that conservative women deserve less respect is not progressive. It is reactionary.
Musk’s comments were not offensive because of who Sydney Sweeney is or what she may believe. They were offensive because they reduced her to anatomy and turned her into content for a powerful man’s amusement.
What makes this moment revealing is not the billionaire behaving badly, but how easily that behaviour was excused by people who would have vehemently defended any other woman in the same position.
If Musk’s posts prove anything, it is how quickly political tribalism erodes empathy. Once a woman’s body becomes ideological property, basic decency is the first thing to go, on both sides of the political spectrum.
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