It’s official. The State of the Union is…boobs.
Florida Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz posted — and then deleted — an image on X of a wide-eyed President Joe Biden walking into Thursday night’s speech alongside a picture of “Euphoria” star Sydney Sweeney – the photos situated so his gaze was fixed to her ample cleavage spilling out of a black dress.
Two of this week’s viral moments fused in perfect accord.
When called out by a Politico reporter, Moskowitz responded, “It was inappropriate. I took it down.”
But given the week Sweeney’s breasts have had, it’s only fitting they found their way into the D.C. discourse.
For those not living perpetually online, Sweeney’s au naturale double D bombs set off one of the most brutal, bloody battles in our raging culture wars.
While co-hosting “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, the 26-year-old actress leaned into her famous bust, playing a stacked Hooters waitress in one sketch.
During the show’s wrap-up, she donned a plunging black frock that showed off her girls, bouncing as she enthusiastically dished out the customary thank-yous.
The image of the blonde’s embonpoint boomeranged online, drawing lusty appreciation from dudes. But their ubiquity then spawned something else: think-pieces mostly from conservative or heterodox women about a deeper cultural significance.
Writer Amy Hamm argued in the National Post that Sweeney’s breasts were beating back woke culture and the clever Bridget Phetasy heralded the return of boobs for The Spectator.
“For anyone under the age of twenty-five, they’ve likely never seen it in their lifetime — as the giggling blonde with an amazing rack has been stamped out existence, a creature shamed to the brink of extinction,” Phetasy wrote.
And then, blowback from the left flank: a flurry of angry tweets including one from writer Ali Barthwell who admitted she couldn’t get past the paywall to read Phetasy’s analysis but called Phetasy’s premise, “fatphobia, misogyny, anti-blackness, transphobia just rolled into one” anyway.
“these weird conservatives are lifting up sydney sweeney for being a thin cis white blonde with big boobs because they are mad other body types have also been on tv,” she wrote.
NYMag’s The Cut urged, “Leave Sydney Sweeney’s boobs out of this.”
One X commenter quipped, “Turning [Sweeney’s breasts] into a left/right thing is stupid. They’re both perfect.”
Never in history has there been so much intellectualizing of breasts — at least one singular set.
Politics aside, Sweeney took us all down mammary lane to when lad mags ruled and cleavage was king, Phetasy noted.
Back then Jimmy Kimmel’s “The Man Show” had a regular feature of women jumping on trampolines and Jenny McCarthy was in that white bikini. The consensus: breasts are great.
What happened? Sure Kate Upton’s overflowing cups ruled Sports Illustrated Swimsuit special from 2013 to 2014 while Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian were making butts the new boobs.
But scoldy types called it all objectification. Times were changing. Playboy, once the premier platformer of mammaries, stopped showing them.
The #MeToo era arrived and in its overcorrection, branded any appreciation of the classic female form, misogyny. The penalty? Career death by cancellation squad.
Then, the body positivity movement, instead of widening beauty standards, yelled, “You must love every body shape. Mostly big ones.”
We heard about the “male gaze” in Victoria’s Secret’s ill-fated rebrand when — in a show of self-flagellation — they hired Meghan Rapinoe as a brand ambassador.
She told The New York Times in 2021 that the bra giant, in its original form, was “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired,” adding it was “really harmful.”
But simultaneously, red carpets became trashy parades of exhibition. Celebrities showing off everything all at once, leaving no boundary unpushed or any body part unrevealed.
Butts, boobs and sometimes even the most private bits. All together, too much.
Sweeney is not that. With a modicum of modesty, the pretty blonde is a relatively covered up girl next door — but she makes no apologies for her God-given assets.
Slim, petite and stacked, she’s a physical anomaly. Though she came 30 years later, she looks like the walking prototype for the Seinfeldian phrase, “they’re real and they’re spectacular.”
And whatever the societal implications of her bustline, Sweeney seems to be winking at us all, from the driver’s seat. The ultimate feminine power play.
Source link
