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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Sex sells for Sydney Sweeney – and so does being a Republican
It has been a busy few days for people who like getting hysterical about Sydney Sweeney. First came the frenzied outrage in certain Left-wing circles after she starred in a provocative advert for American Eagle jeans; the actress, who is white with blonde hair and blue eyes, was accused of promoting eugenics by riffing on genes and jeans. 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,' runs the tagline. Then came reports that the 27-year-old Euphoria and Anyone But You star is a registered Republican, further enraging those who abhor the idea that a young performer could have conservative politics or endorse the liberal bogeyman that is Donald Trump. One particularly hysterical social media critic accused Sweeney of parroting 'Nazi propaganda', while others variously said the language in the adverts were reminiscent of '1930s Germany' and championing 'white supremacy'. A few years ago, during the peak woke era, such stories would taint a star, who would rush to reverse their way out of things and apologise for any offence that they unwittingly caused for fear that they would suffer incalculable career damage. But woke is waning and it is hard to see this as anything other than confirmation that Sweeney is the hottest, most talked-about film star in the world right now. Wokeism's censorious peak has passed as the movement's worst excesses have been curbed by champions of free speech and feminists who refused to accept new orthodoxy on gender, as well as a sense that many find constant culture wars wearying. Being young is no longer a guarantee of holding progressive views: Trump did better than ever with young voters last year (earning 42 per cent of votes from the under-30s), while polls suggest Reform UK would be the second-biggest beneficiary of the franchise being extended to 16- and 17-year-olds. Sweeney is, in many respects, a throwback to an earlier Hollywood era: conventionally beautiful, aware of it, interested in making mainstream hits and game enough to regularly get her clothes off on camera. 'I am always very supportive of nudity, of sexual scenes, if the story of the character warrants it,' she told Vanity Fair last year. Much of her performance on Saturday Night Live in March last year was focused on her breasts – at Sweeney's insistence. She knows that sex sells – and, in 2025, so might being a Republican. It is less than a year since Trump was re-elected and, for the first time in his three tilts at the presidency, he comfortably won the popular vote. Just by virtue of being a registered supporter of the Grand Old Party in Florida, Sweeney is much closer to the median American than, say, her peers who drank the California Kool-Aid. Trump himself was asked by reporters about Sweeney's apparent support of him on Sunday night. 'She's a registered Republican?' he said. 'Now I love her ad. You'd be surprised how many people are Republicans.' Later, on his Truth Social website, Trump contrasted the fortunes of American Eagle with those of Jaguar, which had a botched rebrand in November and whose chief executive, Adrian Mardell, retired last week; Budweiser, which lost billions of dollars in market value after teaming up with a transgender influencer; and Taylor Swift, who endorsed Kamala Harris. 'Ever since I alerted the world as to what she was by saying on TRUTH that I can't stand her (HATE!). She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became, NO LONGER HOT,' he wrote in his characteristically statesmanlike style. 'The tide has seriously turned – Being WOKE is for losers, being Republican is what you want to be.' The American Eagle share price subsequently surged by 16 per cent. Even if Sweeney, who has not commented on her voting record, is a Republican she is hardly an unthinking Maga headbanger. Over the years she has publicly expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement and gay rights, while last year she starred as a novice nun in Immaculate, much of which is an unsubtle commentary on how modern society treats women with unwanted pregnancies. 'I don't like getting into political topics, but I do believe that a woman has the right to be able to decide over her body,' she told Flaunt magazine in 2021. we need to do better. the hate in this world needs to end. #BlackLivesMatter — Sydney Sweeney (@sydney_sweeney) May 31, 2020 This desire to not get into political topics is reflected in the films she stars in, which tend to be firmly in the mainstream and provide escapism from the world beyond the cinema. She and Glen Powell (a Texan who it is also speculated tends towards having conservative politics) basically revived the romcom with Anyone But You, a modern-day take on Much Ado About Nothing. Unlike so many Hollywood stars, Sweeney comes from humble beginnings and is almost as far away as it is to get from being a nepo baby. She grew up in Spokane, Washington state, the daughter of a lawyer mother and hospitality worker father; her brother, Trent, is in the US Air Force and stationed in the UK. Sweeney caught the acting bug as a child, after auditioning to be an extra at the age of 11; two years later, her family relocated to Los Angeles as she tried to make it in Hollywood. Life was hard, with the family spending the best part of a year sharing a one-bedroom hotel room as they struggled to make ends meet. They were forced to sell their home in Washington and, by 2016, her parents had divorced and filed for bankruptcy. That modest background has drilled a remarkable work ethic into Sweeney, who works on evenings and weekends and gets four hours' sleep each night. 'There's 24 hours in a day, obviously,' she said earlier this year. 'But I make sure that there are 26 for me.' Sweeney is just as prolific when it comes to advertising. As well as endorsing American Eagle's jeans, she has shilled for Samsung phones and Baskin-Robbins ice cream, as well as selling soap made using some of her own bath water. She is reported to be launching a lingerie brand with backing from Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. Her family members, and their apparent politics, have caused her problems in the past. She threw a hoedown-themed 60th birthday party for her mother, Lisa, that became notable when photographs showed that some guests were wearing Trump-style baseball caps with the words 'Make Sixty Great Again' on them. Amid a liberal backlash, Sweeney complained in a post on X that 'an innocent celebration for my mom's milestone 60th birthday has turned into an absurd political statement, which was not the intention'; the following year she said that there had been 'so many misinterpretations' of what had happened. 'The people in the pictures weren't even my family,' she said. 'The people who brought the things that people were upset about were actually my mom's friends from LA who have kids that are walking outside in the Pride parade, and they thought it would be funny to wear because they were coming to Idaho.' For Hollywood the increasingly pugnacious, and litigious, Trump is the 800lb gorilla in the room. There appears to be a tacit acceptance among the entertainment industry's elites that the woke shift that was partly sparked by the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements went so far that it alienated a large swathe of possible viewers. David Ellison, the son of Oracle multi-billionaire Larry, managed to secure US government approval for the purchase of Paramount by his Skydance venture partly by promising to do away with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies. Meanwhile, Disney – whose chief executive, Bob Iger, was an outspoken critic of Trump's policies during his first term – has rowed back on its blatantly progressive plots in an effort to appeal to as broad a cohort of viewers as possible. For instance, it axed a transgender storyline in February's animated series, Win or Lose. 'When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognise that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline,' a spokesman said in December. Taylor Sheridan – the creator of Yellowstone and its spin-offs – has become arguably the most successful TV showrunner of his generation by providing an underserved market of people who do not want high-handed lecturing from the series they watch. A ranch owner in Texas himself, Sheridan romanticises America and its frontier history, rather than scorning it as many liberals have done in recent years, and has huge audiences for his Western revivals. Country artist Morgan Wallen is one of the biggest music stars in the world for similar reasons. Other studios are embracing religious stories as a way to connect with more conservative viewers, while the genre has the added benefit of being relatively cheap to make but a cash cow. The changing tastes of Hollywood can perhaps be best summed up with how two Trump-adjacent projects have fared in the past couple of years. The Apprentice, Sebastian Stan's unflattering Trump biopic, struggled to get a distributor last year, but Amazon has spent tens of millions of dollars on a documentary about Melania, the first lady. Harrison Ford, the veteran Indiana Jones star, told Variety last month that this vibe shift was inevitable. 'The pendulum doth swing in both directions, and it's on a healthy swing to the right at the moment. And, as nature dictates, it will swing back.' Lest we forget that Ronald Reagan, the president who originally coined the 'Make America Great Again' slogan, was a Hollywood star who served as leader of the Screen Actors Guild for almost as long as he was in the White House. For Sweeney, it appears unlikely that her apparent outing as a Republican will do much, if any, damage to her career or cost her industry friends. Her first film set to be released next year is directed by her Euphoria co-star Colman Domingo, who is gay and black, in which she stars as actress and artist Kim Novak. Appropriately enough, it is called Scandalous!
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump's demand that India stop buying Russian oil puts Modi in tight spot
The relationship between India and the US is facing one of its most significant challenges in decades, as the Trump administration doubles down on its demands that India stop buying Russian oil or face punitive tariffs. The US president, Donald Trump, has refused to cut tariffs on Indian exports to the US, as he has for other countries, and on Monday said he would significantly raise them over its purchases of cheap Russian oil, which now account for one-third of its imported oil. 'They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,' he said in a post to his Truth Social network, also accusing India of selling Russian oil 'on the Open Market for big profits'. In a previous social media tirade last week, he said of Russia and India: 'They can take their dead economies down together.' Appearing on Fox News on Sunday at the weekend, his hardline deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, did not hold back as he took direct aim at India, stating that Trump had made it clear 'it is not acceptable for India to continue financing this [Ukraine] war by purchasing the oil from Russia'. The whiplash the last few days have caused in the corridors of New Delhi is palpable. It was only February when India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, was one of the first world leaders to be hosted by Trump and the two men embraced each other and hailed their 'great friendship'. Indian officials were adamant that Russia had not even come up in trade negotiations until Trump's public outburst. India had come to view the US as one of its strongest and most reliable partners, united by the bonhomie between its leaders and growing cooperation on everything from regional security and defence to bilateral trade, intelligence, technology and an increasingly powerful Indian diaspora in the US. A united geopolitical ambition to counterbalance the power of China had only brought them further together under recent presidents. Yet it did not go unnoticed by India that China – the other big buyer of sanctioned Russian oil, which also has leverage over the US in the form of rare earths – has not received similar threats, and neither has Turkey. Trump's moves have been met with a frosty, if not outright defiant, reception among Indian officials. After Trump told reporters he had heard India would 'no longer' be buying Russian oil, he was swiftly contradicted by Indian officials over the weekend, who said there would be no change in policy. Under India's 'non-alignment' foreign policy it has maintained a close partnership with Russia over decades while strengthening ties with the US; a position largely tolerated by Washington and reiterated by Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson for India's foreign ministry, following Trump's threats. 'Our bilateral relationships with various countries stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country,' said Jaiswal. 'India and Russia have a steady and time-tested partnership.' In a column in the Indian Express, Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary, did not mince his words. 'Donald Trump was supposed to be good for India in his second presidency,' he said. 'He has turned out to be a nightmare.' Saran was among those who called for India to follow the example of China and Brazil and stand up to Trump. He insisted that although there would be 'pain in resisting Trump … we should be prepared to endure it'. 'Submitting to his exaggerated demands, which are now political as well as economic, would severely undermine India's national interests,' said Saran. 'We cannot give any country a veto over which countries India should or should not partner with.' It is widely agreed among analysts that Modi has been put in an unenviable position by Trump; either acquiesce to Trump's demands and see loss of face domestically or reject them and face sky-high tariffs – and possibly other punitive actions – that would cripple the Indian economy. The Indian political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta said India was not the exception in mistakenly thinking that 'Trump is purely transactional and that by placating him, pandering to his ego and giving him good headlines, it will be enough to make him quietly dial back'. One of the major sticking points for Modi, he said, was the highly public nature of Trump's threats, which had complicated the possibility of backdoor negotiations over India quietly moving away from buying Russian oil and arms. He said Trump had already 'frankly humiliated the Indian prime minister' over the recent India-Pakistan conflict in May, where Trump had publicly taken the credit for negotiating a ceasefire – a position vehemently denied by the Modi government in the aftermath. Trump's recent embrace of Pakistan, signing deals with India's enemy on cryptocurrency, mining and oil – and even having the chagrin to suggest India may one day buy Pakistani oil – as well as hosting the Pakistan army chief for lunch in the White House, had only added insult to injury. Mehta said suspicions towards the US in New Delhi now resembled those of 1971, when President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, sent warships to India in what is considered one of the lowest points of the US-India relationship. 'The damage is already done,' said Mehta. 'No matter what deal they come to now, distrust of the US is only going to continue to skyrocket.'
North Wales Chronicle
an hour ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Stakes rise in Russia-Ukraine war as Trump's deadline for Kremlin approaches
Mr Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was expected in Moscow in the middle of this week, just before Mr Trump's Friday deadline for the Kremlin to stop the killing or face potentially severe economic penalties from Washington. Previous Trump promises, threats and cajoling have failed to yield results, and the stubborn diplomatic stalemate will be hard to clear away. Meanwhile, Ukraine is losing more territory on the front line, although there is no sign of a looming collapse of its defences. Mr Witkoff was expected to land in the Russian capital on Wednesday or Thursday, according to Mr Trump, following his trip to Israel and Gaza. 'They would like to see (Witkoff),' Mr Trump said on Sunday of the Russians. 'They've asked that he meet so we'll see what happens.' Mr Trump, exasperated that Russian president Vladimir Putin has not heeded his calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities, a week ago moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia as well as introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil, including China and India. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that officials are happy to meet with Mr Trump's envoy. 'We are always glad to see Mr Witkoff in Moscow,' he said. 'We consider (talks with Witkoff) important, substantive and very useful.' Mr Trump said on Sunday that Russia has proved to be 'pretty good at avoiding sanctions'. 'They're wily characters,' he said of the Russians. The Kremlin has insisted that international sanctions imposed since its February 2022 invasion of its neighbour have had a limited impact. Ukraine insists the sanctions are taking their toll on Moscow's war machine and wants Western allies to ramp them up. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday urged the United States, Europe and other nations to impose stronger secondary sanctions on Moscow's energy, trade and banking sectors. Mr Trump's comments appeared to signal he does not have much hope that sanctions will force Mr Putin's hand. The secondary sanctions also complicate Washington's relations with China and India, who stand accused of helping finance Russia's war effort by buying its oil. Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has found that stopping the war is harder than he perhaps imagined. Senior American officials have warned that the US could walk away from the conflict if peace efforts make no progress.
