When I first wrote about Sydney Sweeney in March 2024 , it was because a blaring culture war discourse was forming around the topic of the young actress’ Saturday Night Live appearance. It happened again this summer , with her infamous American Eagle “good jeans” campaign.

Sweeney, 28, has been a lightning rod in the parley between the left and right, the woke and the anti-woke, and the chronically offended versus the perennially provocative. She attained an almost Helen-of-Troy-like stature within the culture war, her beauty — or, ahem, breasts — framed as weapons of destruction. One look at her and we would all seemingly go mad, either with desire or rage.

Many of us imposed our preferred narratives upon Sweeney — and it wasn’t quite clear where she stood. Nor did it particularly

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