Sydney Sweeney is everywhere these days. On one hand that’s good: The actress spent ages struggling to make it big, and now that she has, she can do things like buy back the family house they had to sell in desperate times. The drawback is that she’s often treated like an object. Sweeney is a multiple Emmy nominee, but a lot of the cultural discussion about her concerns her body. Understandably she has some complicated feelings about that.
In a new chat with Variety for her new nusnploitation picture Immaculate, the actress was asked about the reaction to her recent SNL episode. A lot of the reactions to that were about her figure; a sketch in which she played a Hooters waitress even prompted the eatery to make her an offer to come work for them (for charity). When asked if she’d noticed those discussions, Sweeney replied thusly:
I see it, and I just can’t allow myself to have a reaction. I don’t know how to explain it — I’m still trying to figure it out myself. People feel connected and free to be able to speak about me in whatever way they want, because they believe that I’ve signed my life away. That I’m not on a human level anymore, because I’m an actor. That these characters are for everybody else, but then me as Sydney is not for me anymore. It’s this weird relationship that people have with me that I have no control or say over.
Sweeney’s response — resigned to something she clearly doesn’t feel wholly comfortable with — is more than a little sad. It’s also a reminder that all performers are ultimately treated like meat, forms of commerce. Luckily she has enough awards, nominations, and raves to show that she’s also taken seriously as a thespian. And yet.
(Via Variety)