What do Sydney Sweeney and Stephen Colbert have in common?
No, it’s not the opening of a joke—although that sort of thing might have helped Colbert salvage “The Late Show.” The just-canceled program forgot that the purpose of a comedy show is to, you know, make people laugh.
It’s actually a serious question, and the answer might surprise you. Of course, there’s the obvious.
Both Sweeney and Colbert have recently become lightning rods for controversy—the former for an American Eagle ad campaign that has inexplicably been compared to Nazi propaganda.
The latter? Getting axed by CBS after his $100 million a year late-night wokefest hemorrhaged so much money that the network couldn’t paper the losses over anymore.
Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign is receiving criticism for a “jeans/genes” pun that some say echoes eugenics and white supremacy rhetoric.
Right-wing voices are celebrating the ad as a pushback against “wokeness.” pic.twitter.com/Q6LkOoAqbi
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 29, 2025
Both have brought the culture war into sharp focus, with forces on the Right and Left taking up the mantle to suit their purposes.
On its most basic level, however, the battle is about one thing: controlling the cultural narrative. And it’s a battle that the Forces of Progressivism now understand that they’re losing.
Badly.
That’s the reason they’re so terrified. Need proof? Check out this MSNBC story from Hannah Holland, a producer on the uber-leftist network:
“Sydney Sweeney’s ad shows an unbridled shift toward whiteness.” Move past that bat-guano crazy clickbait headline, and you can see real fear percolating between the lines.
In the videos, Sweeney exudes a sort of vintage sexiness that caters to the male gaze. She embodies the near mythological, girl-next-door beautiful but low-maintenance femininity that dominated media in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Together, the campaign feels regressive and not retro, offensive and not cheeky.
Girl next door beautiful? Low-maintenance sexy? Heaven forbid!
But Holland lets the mask slip with her lament over how traditional beauty standards are making a comeback is somehow “regressive.” When you consider how the Left has spent the last decade trying to convince us that obesity is attractive and that biological sex doesn’t matter, the threat that Sweeney poses to their narrative becomes clear.
The reaction to Colbert’s cancellation, meanwhile, demonstrates how the progressives have lost their control over the narrative. “The Late Show” has been bleeding cash for years, but CBS seemed content to keep pouring millions down that ratings hole.
So what changed?
Liberal pundits would have you believe that dumping Colbert was a bribe to President Donald Trump, particularly after CBS News had to settle with him over its misleading edits to a Kamala Harris interview during the 2024 election.
60 Minutes removed Kamala’s word salad in the latest version. 1984 is here.
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 8, 2024
Others claim it was to grease the skids for the sale of CBS’s parent company Paramount Global to Skydance Media. In truth, the culture had moved past Colbert and his brand of “clapter” comedy.
Just as the culture has moved past the woke definition of femininity.
That’s why progressives have reacted to the American Eagle ads and Colbert’s cancellation as Dracula would react to daylight. Both showed that their grip over the culture is failing, and with it their ability to drive the wider narrative.
That noise you hear? It’s just the final gasps of the woke beast as it goes, not so gently, into that good night.
Marc Giller is an information technology professional and a novelist. His latest thriller, “CANDIDATE Z,” is available at Amazon
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