#grantgustin and #cwtheflash have been trending since last night. For those who don’t know what exactly happened, news flash – The Flash was body-shamed.
Actually, it all began when someone leaked a photograph of actor Grant Gustin from the sets of The Flash Season 5. In the said photo, the actor was obviously not ready to be photographed (though I found it cute). All of us have that one friend who clicks weird pictures when we are not looking. We are living in an age where even non-celebs use filters and apps to “enhance” their pictures. Though, when Grant’s pic was leaked, trollers did not blink once before making fun of it. From the new #flashsuit to Grant’s physique – everything was trolled mercilessly on the internet!
Now, generally actors ignore trollers and move on but celebs are human too and sometimes it affects them. Grant did not like the kind of hate that swarm across social media after the photo leak and he reacted with a short video story where he condemned the person who leaked that picture. Later, in a more elaborate response, he spoke about the suit and body-shaming:
We have come a long way as a society. We have grown out and above of the assumptions and stereotypes that we believed in. Today, we have a Brown actress playing an FBI on a leading American TV show (Quantico), a brunette unlike the usual blonde guy playing The Flash, a British actor playing America’s favorite good-neighborhood kid Spiderman and so on. From Modern Family to Mindy’s Project and Hot in Cleveland to the latest DC venture Bat-woman – international TV is representing people of color, different age groups and LGBTQ community, and we as audiences are loving it.
However, when some sections of the society hide under the anonymity of the internet and play the troll game, they pull us several steps back. We need to stop when the meme game goes too far. It is actually shameful that an internationally popular, widely-acclaimed superhero who is celebrated all across the world for his amazing work has to go through something like this after dedicating half a decade to a character.
We are better than that. Next time before you share a meme that dishonors someone, please think twice. Is all that hate worth it?
