The video is 46 seconds long. The President is in the aisle of the plane that is going to take him to the Swiss city of Davos. But now he has more earthly concerns. Or he has what could be described as an obsession: Don’t let your double chin get in the way of the photos.
For almost a minute Javier Milei He is going to repeat the pose for the selfies that a group of curious people ask of him. It is a way of standing in front of the camera that thousands of young people in the country copy and even Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the IMF, who in Davos will repeat the formula with the Argentine president: the two thumbs pointing to the sky, at the strategic height of the stomach, the head tilted towards the ground, and the mouth tight and pointed outwards. Milei is able to greet the fans she has on the plane throughout the duration of the video without ever lowering her arms. He repeats it like a robotand even without verifying each of the selfies it could be stated with surgical precision that they all come out the same.
The thing is that, despite the fact that he is going to a key event at the World Economic Forum – in which he will later give an unusual speech criticizing socialism – or that he is leaving behind the country that he commands and that in one month of government has already reached a record inflation, Milei can never get the worry about her aesthetics out of her head. Even though she has a perfectly natural double chin for a 53-year-old man, appearing in a photo is a mortal sin for him. And yet, it is not at all a secondary fact. Every double chin, even the photoshopped one, is political.
The forces of heaven.
The year was 2016 and Milei had very recently debuted on television. However, she seemed to already have the formula for success in her hands. And to a friend, with whom she used to share a panel, she explained it to him. “You have to go out like this, with your face down, so that your double chin doesn’t show,” he told her.
The years, but especially the media and political exposure, increased this mania, which some psychologist could say has been carried over from the years of school bullying and domestic violence. What is certain is that power took her to unexpected places.
The anecdote is long and almost endless. From “countouring”, the technique with which Lilia Lemoineassistant, ex-partner and deputy, made up her double chin, she switched to plain and simple Photoshop, which the influencer used Eugenia Rolón until falling from grace two weeks ago. The photos went viral on the networks: a Milei who looks 25 years old on the day of the swearing-in with the band, or with a few kilos less at the Cabinet presentation, just to name a few of the dozens of retouched images. It is a search that is not only carried out through a computer: on the day of the inauguration he prohibited the entry of photographers into Congress not because of his terrible relationship with the press – as the fact was read – but because, due to the angle at which The photojournalists are left, they can only take images from below.
There is also a whole liturgy about the jackets he wears to prevent his body from being seen, the same logic why his hands in selfies and the books he carries are always at stomach level. This is how he could be seen in the tragedy of Bahía Blanca, in the middle of summer, wearing two jackets, or going out to greet the balcony of the Casa Rosada also wearing that garment, despite the suffocating Buenos Aires heat. Ornela Panniza, an influencer who calls herself “Lady Market” on social media, held a one-hour meeting with the libertarian in the presidential office at the beginning of the year. She then told that The air conditioning is on full blast and extremely cold.
Another issue that occupies Milei’s head is everything that surrounds his supposed status as a sexual man. It is something that he has been building since his time in the media – he liked to say that he practiced tantric sex for hours – but that has now escalated. The passionate kiss with his girlfriend Fatima Florez on a stage in Mar del Plata in front of the cameras – in front of which she always wants to clarify that her partner “is very hot” -, or the podiatric photo that the actress uploaded to deny the versions – which was started by a tweeter called @marianherrrera in the format of joke – that the president was wearing 37, with the obvious implications that this is supposed to have. Also the shocks of his visit to Davos: the images he shared on his X account where an almost naked woman is seen watching his speech, another of a couple having sex while listening to him (which Elon Musk himself uploaded) or four women carrying a giant penis on their backs in allusion to the libertarian. ““The maintenance of a supposed virility is central to the new right.”adds the writer and liberal intellectual Jose Benegasan idea that plays into how many followers of the President share photos on the networks showing a hypermuscular and hegemonic Milei, or the fact that he likes to present himself as a lion, the king of the jungle.
Milei wants to go to Antarctica but they can’t get her boots because she SIZES 37!!!!! pic.twitter.com/n4mkMEH3QK
— Marian Herrera (@marianherrrera) January 4, 2024
The list of artificial realities could go on for several more paragraphs. But, although an interesting analysis could also be formulated of the intersection of the new right with the post-truth – deliberate distortion of reality that not only affects the presidential double chin but also the false data that the President usually repeats, such as that Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century was the “first world power” -, the great underlying issue is another. The question is what the President’s head is up to.
Labyrinth.
It is clear that Argentina’s big problems happen elsewhere, not because of the president’s physical appearance. That it is precisely he who dedicates so much time to it is what raises questions.
It is a mirror of the incident he had with the journalist Silvia Mercado, who said that the libertarian’s cloned dogs had already moved to Olivos, something that caused a furious denial on his part. “It would be good for journalism to dedicate a little more time to the country’s serious problems and less to private issues,” he snapped… while he himself was spending time on “private issues.”
That is why the doubt that fuels the President’s aesthetic obsession is different. It can also be observed in the unusual crossings that he has been having. One is the one mentioned with Mercado, but there were others: a furious fight with Hugo Arana on the networks – despite the fact that the actor has been dead for several years – or the criticism he launched at a fake account of Axel Kicillof. When he realized the error he wanted to correct it in a quite striking way: “What was said in the fake account is nonsense that the real one could have said without a doubt.”
If we add to these episodes his raid in Davos – he spoke about the fight against “neo-Marxism”, the “danger of socialism” and then uploaded a photo of a lion breaking a flag of the Soviet Union, which has been extinct more than three decades -, the center of the issue is different. It is one that NEWS has been recounting since Milei launched herself into politics, which she reflected with the reality of her dead dog and the mystical connection that it is supposed to have opened for her with God himself: How focused is the President? Do you distinguish reality from what is happening in your head? Or when you look in the mirror, does the reflection give you the same thing as Photoshop? Or do you think that if you lower your head no one will notice your double chin? Or do you really believe that the successors of Lenin and Trotsky are just around the corner lurking to return to power? Or do you think the world’s problem is the threat of “neo-Marxism”?
It is because of doubts like these that the philosopher and journalist Tomás Balmaceda asks himself “what does a double chin hide?”, while Guillermo Morenowho treated Milei a lot, goes so far as to maintain that “The President is not located in time and space”.
The thing is, behind what appears on the networks as memes to laugh at the libertarian for some or adorations and praise for Milei’s physique for anothers, the mystery posed by the President’s difficulties in dealing with reality opens hundreds of questions. How would you react if Congress did not approve the Omnibus Law or if it rejected the DNU? Who will he deal with if inflation doesn’t go down? What will you do if a conflict happens in the region?
With some things Photoshop or makeup can do magic. But with others, unfortunately, not.
