Wishing Sonakshi Sinha on her birthday, one stereotype at a time

It’s Sonakshi Sinha’s birthday, and as wishes poured in on social media, so did vitriol, being sold as good-natured ribbing. Let’s just say, there is nothing LOL-worthy about using stereotypes to wish the starlet– jokes about her forehead or weight don’t make for humour, certainly not the civilised kind. [caption id=“attachment_1553313” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sonakshi Sinha. AFP[/caption] Twitter, again, is leading the bandwagon. Since the news of the starlet’s birthday broke on social media, people have taken it upon themselves to engage in a healthy debate about beauty and confirming to stereotypes, because nothing says happy birthday like calling someone ‘fat cow’.Birthday wishes are all about showing affection. So why tell, if you can show? Nothing could be better than putting to together a  compendium of pictures with insulting captions, as the Times of India has. However, the cherry on the proverbial cake is the disclaimer at the end, which says: “Disclaimer: These are meant for fun only and we request you not to be offended by them.” With that disclaimer it’s hard to be offended. Leaves one wondering if the bigger crime is cracking such jokes, finding them funny or being reminded in hindsight how not cool it is to laugh at them. After all, once the daily dose of disclaimers and political correctness has been added, it makes everything rosy again. But if that falls short, we can always joke about her forehead. After all, when trying to laugh at how someone looks, particularly a woman, it’s an insult to the very idea of stereotyping if jokes are made only about her weight. That could seem insensitive and juvenile.

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  Happy birthday Sonakshi. You may be fighting stereotypes but who cares until you went from size 14 to size six in 60 seconds. To quote India TV: “Her love for food and sedentary lifestyle was excused by all in her family but one, her mother Poonam Sinha who alike every mother of a young girl was worried of her daughter’s ignorance towards herself. Take a look at her pics…” Oh, and, Happy Birthday. I guess that was the point.