America's Rorshach Test: Why Sydney Sweeney makes liberals go mad

Note: The following excerpt is from The Weekly Vine, a TOI newsletter for LinkedIn. You can also get it in your inbox.Hello and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Vine.Jean Paul Sartre once said – and I am guilty of repeating this ad nauseam (pun intended) – that freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. He was wrong or misinformed because he was never married. Freedom is actually what you do with what’s been done to you till you get married, after which your wife tells you what to do.I learnt that recently after a little man-scaping of my face and was told in uncertain terms that I would be in the dog house – proverbial, not the streets of urban India – till it grew back. Apparently only Messrs Cavill, Hamm and Bomer have the jawlines to keep beard-free. All other jawlines must be graced with shrubbery or be ridiculed.Marriage is full of moments like that. One came along recently when the wife asked: Who is Sydney Sweeney? And why is everyone talking about her?It’s as loaded an ontological question as one gets, and getting it wrong can turn one’s marital life martial. “I don’t know” doesn’t work because it’s highly unlikely that any man doesn’t know the Helen of t...