What do Sydney Sweeney and Stephen Colbert have in frequent?
No, it’s not the opening of a joke—though that kind of factor may need helped Colbert salvage “The Late Present.” The just-canceled program forgot that the aim of a comedy present is to, you understand, make individuals chuckle.
It’s really a critical query, and the reply would possibly shock you. After all, there’s the plain.
Each Sweeney and Colbert have not too long ago change into lightning rods for controversy—the previous for an American Eagle advert marketing campaign that has inexplicably been in comparison with Nazi propaganda.
The latter? Getting axed by CBS after his $100 million a yr late-night wokefest hemorrhaged a lot cash that the community couldn’t paper the losses over anymore.
Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle marketing campaign is receiving criticism for a “denims/genes” pun that some say echoes eugenics and white supremacy rhetoric.
Proper-wing voices are celebrating the advert as a pushback in opposition to “wokeness.” pic.twitter.com/Q6LkOoAqbi
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 29, 2025
Each have introduced the tradition conflict into sharp focus, with forces on the Proper and Left taking on the mantle to swimsuit their functions.
On its most elementary degree, nonetheless, the battle is about one factor: controlling the cultural narrative. And it’s a battle that the Forces of Progressivism now perceive that they’re shedding.
Badly.
That’s the explanation they’re so terrified. Want proof? Try this MSNBC story from Hannah Holland, a producer on the uber-leftist community:
“Sydney Sweeney’s advert exhibits an unbridled shift towards whiteness.” Transfer previous that bat-guano loopy clickbait headline, and you’ll see actual worry percolating between the traces.
Within the movies, Sweeney exudes a kind of classic sexiness that caters to the male gaze. She embodies the close to mythological, girl-next-door lovely however low-maintenance femininity that dominated media within the Nineteen Nineties and the early 2000s. Collectively, the marketing campaign feels regressive and never retro, offensive and never cheeky.
Lady subsequent door lovely? Low-maintenance attractive? Heaven forbid!
However Holland lets the masks slip together with her lament over how conventional magnificence requirements are making a comeback is one way or the other “regressive.” When you think about how the Left has spent the final decade attempting to persuade us that weight problems is engaging and that organic intercourse doesn’t matter, the menace that Sweeney poses to their narrative turns into clear.
The response to Colbert’s cancellation, in the meantime, demonstrates how the progressives have misplaced their management over the narrative. “The Late Present” has been bleeding money for years, however CBS appeared content material to maintain pouring thousands and thousands down that rankings gap.
So what modified?
Liberal pundits would have you ever consider that dumping Colbert was a bribe to President Donald Trump, notably after CBS Information needed to settle with him over its deceptive edits to a Kamala Harris interview in the course of the 2024 election.
60 Minutes eliminated Kamala’s phrase salad within the newest model. 1984 is right here.
— Finish Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 8, 2024
Others declare it was to grease the skids for the sale of CBS’s father or mother firm Paramount International to Skydance Media. In fact, the tradition had moved previous Colbert and his model of “clapter” comedy.
Simply because the tradition has moved previous the woke definition of femininity.
That’s why progressives have reacted to the American Eagle adverts and Colbert’s cancellation as Dracula would react to sunlight. Each confirmed that their grip over the tradition is failing, and with it their capability to drive the broader narrative.
That noise you hear? It’s simply the ultimate gasps of the woke beast because it goes, not so gently, into that good night time.
Marc Giller is an data expertise skilled and a novelist. His newest thriller, “CANDIDATE Z,” is accessible at Amazon