Gossip rag US Weekly decided to celebrate Reese Witherspoon’s 38th birthday with a look back at her bikini body over the years.
Or in other words, “Happy Birthday Reese, now let’s all judge her body!”
UGH.
There are so many other accomplishments the US tabloid could’ve pointed to like (as E! Online did) her best movie roles.
Witherspoon first starred in The Man in the Moon at age 15, so that’s 23 years of seminal roles that could’ve been showcased, including her Very Important Role as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.
Given that’s she’s an actor, we dunno, it kind of makes COMPLETE sense.
Another media outlet, The Huffington Post, chose to celebrate her birthday by writing a post about how much she looks like her mother at age 38. Sure, it’s not an unexpected conclusion to make (that a daughter would one day look a lot like her mother) but it’s still better than publishing photos of her ‘bikini body.’ And don’t even get us started on how much we loathe the term bikini body.
Whether intentional or not, posting a gallery of someone’s body throughout the years is an open invitation for others to body shame.