Sydney Sweeney is once again at the centre of an advertising controversy, but a professor examining her latest campaign says the conversation may be focusing on the wrong thing.

The actor’s advertisement for Novig has attracted attention over her revealing appearance, triggering another online argument over whether such campaigns should be viewed as empowering or sexualising. The debate has quickly expanded into familiar conversations around feminism, anti-feminism and the way women are presented in advertising.

But writer and gender and cultural studies professor Prerna Subramanian has offered a different reading of the campaign.

Instead of making Sydney Sweeney’s body the centre of the discussion, Subramanian has drawn attention to what the advertisement is ultimately promoting. Her criticism, highlighted in coverage of the controversy, is that the campaign should also be examined through the lens of “addiction” and advertising psychology.

That changes the focus of the story.

Professor shifts focus away from Sydney Sweeney’s body

The immediate response to the Novig advertisement has largely revolved around Sweeney’s appearance.

She has been described as appearing half-naked in the campaign, and that visual presentation has fuelled competing arguments over empowerment and sexualisation.

Subramanian’s intervention questions whether that debate, however loud, is distracting viewers from the commercial purpose of the advertisement.

She addressed the campaign on Instagram while discussing the way audiences immediately begin arguing over the politics of a woman’s appearance. The broader point attributed to her analysis is that the discussion should not stop at whether Sweeney’s portrayal is feminist, anti-feminist, empowering or objectifying.

The product being promoted matters too.

That gives the controversy a noticeably different dimension. Sweeney may be the face drawing attention to the campaign, but Subramanian’s criticism puts the spotlight back on the marketing strategy and the behaviour the advertisement is attempting to encourage.

Sydney Sweeney becomes the headline, but Novig becomes the question

Celebrity advertising often works because the celebrity becomes the conversation.

That dynamic is especially visible here. Much of the reaction has centred on Sweeney, what she is wearing and what her appearance supposedly represents.

Subramanian’s argument effectively turns that equation around.

Instead of asking only, “Why is Sydney Sweeney presented this way?”, her analysis points towards another question: What is that presentation being used to sell?

That distinction is important to understanding why the Novig campaign has generated a different kind of criticism.

The discussion surrounding the advertisement has been linked not only to sexualisation and feminism, but also to sports betting marketing and advertising psychology.

In other words, the controversy is no longer only about Sweeney’s image. It is also about how that image functions inside the advertisement.

Another ad controversy for Sydney Sweeney

The episode comes after Sweeney became the subject of another major advertising debate in 2025.

Her American Eagle campaign attracted attention because its script played on the words “jeans” and “genes”, sparking a separate wave of online discussion.

The Novig controversy is different.

Here, the argument has started with Sweeney’s revealing appearance but expanded into a discussion about sports-related marketing, sexualisation and the psychological mechanics surrounding advertising.

Subramanian’s comments add another layer by suggesting that arguments about empowerment can become so dominant that audiences lose sight of what they are being encouraged to consume or participate in.

That is what makes the professor’s response stand out from much of the reaction surrounding the campaign.

The real clash is over what audiences are being asked to notice

There are effectively two conversations happening around Sydney Sweeney’s Novig advertisement.

The first is highly visible: whether presenting Sweeney in a sexualised way should be interpreted as empowerment, objectification or simply conventional celebrity advertising.

The second is the one Subramanian is trying to bring forward: whether concentrating entirely on that cultural debate allows the actual commercial message to escape scrutiny.

Sweeney remains the person attracting the attention.

The professor’s argument is that attention should not end with her.

For a campaign already generating arguments over a half-naked celebrity appearance, that shift in focus may be the most significant part of the controversy: Sydney Sweeney is the image everyone is discussing, while Subramanian wants people to look at what sits behind the image.

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