El cuerpo como categoría política en el movimiento social “body positive”

Abstract

This research focuses on the way in which the representatives of the Body Positive social movement use the body as a tool of power to break with the canons of beauty and redefine the concept of the body in Tik Tok. Four videos were selected for analysis, whose message explicitly refers to the main objective of the movement. Such videos belong to four influencers' profiles from different countries, including Vietnam, United States, Ecuador and Chile. Judith Butler's gender performativity theory was considered as the main theory for the study. A mixed approach was determined in which, first, a content analysis was carried out to collect numerical data regarding the publications of each profile and interactions of the selected videos. Subsequently, a critical multimodal discourse analysis was applied in which the textual, visual and sound elements used in each video were studied. These data were collected in five different tables. With this, the most significant result of the research shows that, indeed, the representatives of the movement show their bodies with cellulite, stretch marks, acne, among others, to promote self-acceptance based on the discourse of "I accept myself". However, it is concluded that the politicization of the body is not enough to get people to accept themselves completely, much less in an audience as diverse as that of Tik Tok.