The photos of Camila Cabello in a bikini unleash from degrading comments to “congratulations” for showing her cellulite; the debate is not positive

Camila Cabello is an internationally successful singer and actress who has had to deal in recent weeks with the judgment that thousands of people and the media around the world have made of some images of her in a bikini.

The photographs were taken, without his permission, by the British tabloid Daily Mailon May 31, while she was enjoying a swim on the Amalfi Coast, in Italy.

At first, the photographs are nothing special: it is about a woman in an orange bikini cooling off in the sea.

But Daily Mailand numerous media after they have presented it as if it were something extraordinaryand, in fact, they have generated a public debate in which the harsh aesthetic judgments to which women are subjected in society have come to the fore, regardless of other aspects of their professional or personal lives.

the owner of the Daily Mail detonated the collective judgment on the foreign body, that of the artist, by saying: “Camila Cabello does a cheeky display in a skimpy bikini orange”.

And while some have focused on highlighting what they consider unattractive aspects of her physiognomy (such as the natural cellulite that many people may have), others have praised her for being “brave” and appearing unapologetically on the beach.

But even calling her “a brave” can convey to thousands of women around the world that their bodies are not “normal”, that there is a model to which they do not belong.

This public judgment on Cabello and her body does not only impact the artist, who has explained on several occasions how “vulnerable” you felt with the photographs taken by the paparazzi or even in the poses of their promotions.

In the end, the public debate moves between criticism and insults, defense and a certain paternalism. All generated by a piece published in a medium of unremarkable photos.

“It’s amazing how it can be news that you are enjoying a vacation at sea, wearing a bikini like anyone elseand that little less than being asked to apologize for not having a body considered socially perfect”, he tells Univision News Ceci Wallacewell-known activist and influencer against what some call ‘fatphobia’, the phenomenon suffered by those who do not meet certain aesthetic standards.

Wallace, who has a community of 60,000 followers, criticizes “those who think that Cabello shouldn’t appear like this because have cellulite, like 90% of womenwhich is absurd.”

But he also believes that hurt “those who celebrate it as someone brave just for wearing a bikini.”

“You always talk about young women or adolescents, but every day I deal with older women and I see them totally blocked with their bodieswith shattered self-esteem, who don’t even go to the beach because they feel like they can’t show off their body in a bathing suit and that’s heartbreaking,” says Wallace.

The buzz around Cabello’s bikini isn’t surprising, because such comments about women’s bodies have been filling magazines and other publications for a long time.

The pattern repeats: it is always a natural image, not posed, of a woman who is a celebrity and that, in general, does not coincide with photos of her that have been made under production, with rehearsed poses, lights, makeup and subsequent photographic retouching.

And although it has happened that some famous men have been shown in unattractive images, highlighting their bellies or incipient baldness, it is disproportionately famous women (and by extension the rest of them) who are put under the microscope of beauty standards that are unattainable aspirations and fanciful.

“I still don’t see that a man’s summer vacation is just as relevant to magazines as a woman’s. In the end, everything is based on making us feel less for not having a body considered socially perfect,” Wallace denounces.

And he adds: “Of women it is still celebrated that after pregnancies is more or less ‘recovered’. No one asks her if she is okay or needs something, they only talk about whether she has more or less belly left, for example. It’s absurd and really heartbreaking.”