You may have heard, probably way more than you should have, about Sydney Sweeney’s mother’s 60th birthday party.
In case you missed this particular bit of late-summer ridiculousness, the Euphoria actress posted some pictures to social media of her mom’s birthday party, which had a “hoedown” theme. A backlash soon emerged, because some at the party were wearing parody MAGA hats (“Make 60 Great Again”), while one man present (possibly Sweeney’s father) was sporting a shirt with the “Thin Blue Line” logo.
That family members of an actress they like may have family members with politics they dislike seems to have driven a lot of people to irrational anger. It’s not clear where Sweeney’s own political views lie, but she addressed the matter in a tweet:
And that statement is… fine unless you think it’s necessary for Sweeney to distance herself from her parents at the behest of a bunch of people she’ll never meet.
Now, I’m as anti-MAGA as they come, but requiring people to disavow and/or cut off relatives with pro-Trump political views is not a standard that could ever stand any scrutiny in the real world.
Others may argue that it’s Sweeney’s responsibility to convince her family members to adopt more liberal views, but if you’ve ever tried to earnestly talk a relative out of their Trumpy politics, let me know how that went.
Déjà Vu
Then again, this whole episode also smacks very much of an “Arya is a Mary Sue” or “Billie Eilish has never heard of Van Halen” or “Vince Vaughn talked to Trump at a football game” type story- very, very few people are actually mad, but a lot more people are mad at the people who are mad.
Of the social media reactions that I saw, I’m going to guess that about 5 percent of them sincerely believe that Sydney Sweeney should be viewed negatively because of the political views of her family. Probably 60 percent of them directed mockery at that 5 percent.
And the remaining 35 percent made jokes. A lot of them. Either about their not knowing who Sydney Sweeney is, or funny memes about Euphoria. Or boob jokes, of the type that Johnny Carson might have made about Dolly Parton 40 years ago.
Y’all acting surprised that Sydney Sweeney’s family is conservative when her uncle is Sweeney Todd. He’s literally killed people
— Meech (@MediumSizeMeech) August 28, 2022
“Some People Claim that there’s a Woman to Blame”
Now, I get the sense that a lot of people have been harboring a desire to knock Sweeney down a peg or two for mysterious reasons, which is something that tends to happen to any attractive young woman who attains any degree of fame.
Something similar happened when Sweeney threw out the first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game earlier this summer, and the Sox lost that game 27-3, leading to whispers of a “Sydney Sweeney Curse.” But to paraphrase a Jimmy Buffett lyric, “some people claim that there’s a woman to blame/but I know, it’s [their] own damn fault.”
So once again, it is ridiculous to blame Sydney Sweeney for the politics of her parents, or for her refusal to disavow them. Then again, it doesn’t appear that very many people have actually done so, compared to the many who made fun of them for it.
