Playtime

From: Natalie

            From the moment we can truly intake information and what is being put out through movies, television, stories, etc., young girls are taught that attention is a leading factor in our lives. We are the pigs, and attention is the carrot on the stick. We chase after it in various ways, emotionally, physically, sexually, it’s a form of love that we will go great lengths to obtain… but why is it so much harder for us? My two images depict two siblings playing, not together, but in the same room. The young girl stares up at the popstar taped onto her mirror, holding a makeup brush like her own microphone, and simply stares in awe. She portrays little emotion because she is so taken by the star, but lacks the confidence and belief in herself to try to make the seductive expression or pose seen on the poster, because she is a child. The celebrity is taped above, not next to her, to convey that she has all the little girl wants, so they are not on the same level. The young girl idolizes her, she knows that the girl on stage has the attention of thousands and her, and through that the little girl draws her conclusions as to why. The body-accentuating outfit, the promiscuous lip bite, the confident stare and pose, these are all factors the girl sees that will get her to be seen and loved. In Lauren Greenfield’s Girl Culture, Alison (17) states that “[attention] is something people just crave. It’s a form of love, and everybody needs love. That’s why girls want to be famous like Britney Spears. They want people to show interest in them.” This is exactly what the young girl in the mirror is learning, while she should be enjoying her youth and playing with toys like her brother, captured in the next image.

            In the second image, the girl’s brother is seen playing with a monster truck, but also a Barbie. He isn’t saving the Barbie, he is having a major battle between the doll and the truck, and you’d be surprised who was winning. However, in the left corner, a hand is reaching out to grab the Barbie out of his clutch. The image as a whole depicts the standards and gender roles placed on children at such a young age. Since he is a boy, he should not be playing with a feminine girl’s toy. Society will tell him he’s weak, or gay, and punish him for simply playing. He does not notice the hand about to grab the toy, because he thinks nothing wrong of what he is doing, he just is playing with two toys, and is caught up in his moment of fun. But the hand is reached out, assertively, to grab the toy, to quickly teach the boy what is “masculine” and what isn’t. The Two Cultures of Childhood talks about the gender schemas children learn at a concerningly young age, which eventually become a part of their identity. They develop cognitive associations of different behaviors, objects, or social practices as “male” or “female” (Rudman 59-60), which the hand in the image is about to enforce.

            The two images together convey the differences between children’s playtime. The young girl is considered playing pretend, but in reality she is beginning a journey of self-loathing and looking up to highly unrealistic standards. The young boy is genuinely playing, having fun, which he will continue to do even when the Barbie is taken from him. He will instead move onto strictly action figures and pretend weapons, just like society wants him to. He will not yet stare at himself in the mirror like his sister, that will come later, for now, he will just play.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Greenfield, Lauren. “GIRL CULTURE.” Girl Culture - Lauren Greenfield. Zone Zero, 2001. v1.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/girlcult/index.html.

Rudman, Laurie A., et al. “The Two Cultures of Childhood,” The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. The Guilford Press, 2015, 59-63.