By: Martina del Papa
Botox on the lips, blemish-free skin, eye-catching eyelashes and, of course, a 180º turn to the facial features. Those are some of the effects that the famous Instagram filters achieve. A few years ago that practice came to the social network, created by the same users as a solution to the days that do not have “the best face.” Some more noticeable than others, show the beauty that is in fashion and bring it closer in a single click.
But what is hegemonic beauty? It is a model that indicates as the only valid option the way in which women should look: thin, with bleached skin, marked cheekbones, striking mouth, among many other things on that endless list. Everything that comes out of that mold seems to belong to a body with things to correct.
Lala Pasquinelli, Argentine feminist artist and activist, seeks to show the way in which mass culture reproduces and builds gender stereotypes through “Women who were not tapa”, a project of her authorship that is displayed on the internet and in the networks social. His word and his message resonate both in the networks and in his workshops. “Filters bring you closer to a model that deserves to be shown and takes you away from your own body and your appearance. It is an idea that indicates that what is beautiful is a cultural construction, and the more your body resembles that, the more pleasant it is, ”the activist commented in a communication with Cooltura.
The consequences of the use of these filters are various. In studies of medical journals such as JAMA, created by the American Medical Association (AMA), it is indicated that 55% of professionals in plastic surgery recognize that patients attend the office with their own image retouched with the new Instagram filters to indicate to them its objective.
On the other hand, due to the psychological consequences in users with the first filters that emerged in the Snapchat application in 2016, the American Psychiatric Association classified the pathology as “Snapchat dysmorphia.” According to the International Classification of Diseases manual (ICD 10, valid until 2018) of the World Health Organization, these psychological disorders are defined as a consequence of a distortion of self-image, a persistent concern for apparently imperceptible physical defects or imperfections for others that generate a deep discomfort in the subject who suffers it.
“One of the consequences that filters bring is that desire to modify our image and adapt it, so that in real life we see ourselves as in the filters. This causes damage to children and adolescents who do not know what is happening when they feel that they do not like their face. The damage is very great, and reversing it takes many years and has serious psychological and physical consequences, such as anorexia or bulimia. There are already studies that reflect these consequences, we already know that reification causes femicides, therefore there are sufficient reasons for there to be some regulation or specific political decisions, ”concluded Pasquinelli.
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