“Please stop now.” With this plea, actress Kate Beckinsale concluded an extensive statement published on May 5 in her account from Instagram. After spending several days in the hospital for medical reasons not revealed until now, the protagonist of films like Underworld either Pearl Harbor reappeared on the red carpet of a charity event in New York, generating a wave of comments about her physical appearance and the alleged touch-ups she had undergone. “Every time I publish something they accuse me of having undergone unrecognizable surgery, using Botox and being obsessed with looking younger (…) It is a vicious way of intimidating a person,” said the interpreter, calling the speculations regarding his physique. Posting two videos 20 years apart as proof that the changes in her face are the result of aging alone, Beckinsale flatly denied having undergone any treatment: “I have gone so far as to ask a plastic surgeon to categorically state that he does not I have done it and, despite that, every time I publish something a chorus appears that says: ‘My God, you are unrecognizable’, ‘plastic’, ‘you no longer look like yourself’… It happens all the time and it is usually women who do it. do”.
At 50 years old, the British woman is the latest in a long list of Hollywood stars who have denounced the ridicule and scorn suffered by the popular demand to dictate how and when the physiques who dazzled us on the big screen should age. There are the cases of Renée Zellweger, who described as “international humiliation” the debate regarding the supposed surgical interventions that would have changed her face, forcing her to publish a statement in her defense, or the speculations about Demi Moore’s marked cheekbones, which she wore her debut as a model in a Fendi show in 2021 to the general news and generated headlines such as “Demi No Moore” (a phonetic play on words with her last name and which we could translate as “Demi no more”). 24 hours later, however, she posted a photo in which her face displayed her ‘usual’ appearance. On Instagram, the account @celebface, dedicated to revealing and detailing to the world the supposed touch-ups and aesthetic changes of celebrities, has more than a million followers. 99% of the figures analyzed are women, of course.
“Hatred and derogatory comments towards women’s physiques are symptomatic of a culture deeply rooted in sexism and unrealistic beauty standards. “They are judged with a relentless magnifying glass compared to men, and any change in their appearance, whether natural or the result of aesthetic touch-ups, is subject to excessive scrutiny and criticism,” she explains to S Fashion Ixi Ávila, coach of emotional intelligence, highlighting how this age and physical discrimination perpetuates harmful stereotypes while deteriorating women’s self-esteem and emotional well-being.
The expert, who usually receives renowned film or music artists in her consultation, confirms that the fear of criticism for physical appearance is not individual but systemic and especially harmful in adolescents. “They are very aware of the existence of haters either directly or indirectly,” he concedes. “In my sessions with young actresses it has happened more than once that they consider having cosmetic touch-ups in their early twenties. That they don’t feel good when compared to the filter they usually use on Instagram and that they seek to hide everything that comes out of the established beauty canon. An example of a specific case is when they feel nervous when going to a casting: not so much for him casting in itself, but because the fear of being seen naturally, without the filter on or with less makeup than what they normally wear because the character requires it”
In her statement, Kate Beckinsale herself reveals for the first time that, despite accusations of fearing the passing of the years, growing older is something she deeply appreciates since she has lived with trauma since childhood. At five years old she found her father had recently died of a heart attack and she spent “paralyzed by severe anxiety and various panic attacks” for most of her adolescence and the first years of her childhood. adulthood. “Being harassed by the assumption that I can’t deal with the idea of growing old is deeply ironic when the terror that consumed me then was that of not surviving my twenties,” adds the Londoner in a publication that she ended up deleting from her profile a few days without further explanation.
In the words of Ángel Rull, psychologist expert in gender perspective, shame and guilt are the two main wounds caused by hate digital in those who receive it: “Shame appears as a mechanism that tells us that there is something wrong with us and that, therefore, we deserve what is happening. And the fault is the regulatory and controlling mechanism; If this is my fault, I can change it so it won’t happen again.” In their therapies they seek to refocus and place responsibilities correctly: “What happens to me is not my responsibility, nor is there anything wrong with me nor should I change anything. The problem is external and, therefore, foreign to me, to my identity or to the image that I give.” However, the heteronormative thinking that dominates today’s society makes it very difficult for any woman, international star or not, to get out of that parallel judgment in which, according to the specialist, we all participate. “A woman’s body is required as an element of enjoyment for a man, so it has to be perfect. But always from the manipulation mechanism of the system, that it is beautiful but not so much, that it is suggestive but not so much, that it does not age but that the aesthetic retouching is not noticeable. That leads to a balance that is impossible to achieve.”
This same year, actress Erin Moriarty (The Boys) and top model Adriana Lima were also forced to come forward and deny having undergone surgery. “This is the face of a tired mother of a teenage son, two preteens, a very active child, another one year old who is learning to walk and three dogs… thank you for your concern,” replied the former Victoria’s Secret Angel. Reply to haters, disappear from the networks for a while, delete profiles forever… Every celebrity She has her booklet for dealing with digital anger, although, in Kate’s case, experts agree when it comes to praising her gesture. “Writing a protest post like Kate has done is something necessary that can help both people suffering the same type of abuse on a greater or lesser scale and promote social change, by inviting us to reflect and transform what is socially acceptable in the environment. digital,” says Ávila. “Her reaction seems fundamental to me,” Rull corroborates, “because she is using the voice that being a media figure gives her to give a voice to people who do not have one, to those who are silent and to those who are afraid. It is essential that we use our voice to denounce and to point out the real culprit of all this, which will never be me, nor my identity nor my body.” And he concludes: “Evolution will happen not by continuing to focus on women or their bodies, but on the figures that use, abuse or mistreat those bodies. “That’s where the whole debate will end.”
