Muscle mania and the cult of masculinity - When the body becomes an obsession | DW Documentary

Until recently, the use of anabolic steroids was the privilege of elite athletes. But the use of performance-enhancing drugs among young men has now reached alarming proportions.

A powerful documentary about a phenomenon that’s increasingly alarming: young men’s fixation on the perfect body, and their growing use of performance-enhancing substances to achieve it. What was once reserved for professional elite sports is now widespread among teenagers and young men with bodybuilding ambitions. The consequences are serious.

The film radically challenges prevailing male beauty ideals and delves deep into the mechanisms of a global muscle-building industry. Conceived of as an investigative field study, the film reveals the social, psychological, and physical risks associated with the relentless pursuit of corporeal perfection.

By making his own vulnerability the starting point, the filmmaker opens an intimate window into an often-invisible world — while simultaneously exposing the scale of an emerging public health crisis. The film’s perspective is as unsparing as it is sensitive, and shows a system that standardizes bodies, pushes boundaries, and drives young men into a dangerous race against themselves.


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