From: Kylie
In my photo essay I decided to show how the beauty standards for young girls has gotten to be so drastic, and how young girls that are in elementary school start to wear makeup, because they fear that they aren’t pretty enough. I used my younger sister as my model. She is 7 and in the second grade and she has friends at school who wear makeup. As the years go by girls are starting to wear makeup at a younger and younger ages. To show the pressure on girls to wear makeup, I have my model placed at her vanity trying to put on mascara, with a blank look on her face. Having no expression on her face shows how this standard for girls is a negative thing. To show her youthfulness, she is wearing a shirt with a big star on it and the few stickers on the mirror and doll house in the background show she is a young girl who still plays with toys. By just focusing on her face and blurring out her surroundings, it shows that she is so concerned about looking good and trying to please others, so she tunes out everyone and everything else around her. I also made her lips and the makeup pallets brighter than everything else to show how she is more worried about her makeup than more important things. I named this picture Youthful Maturity, because the youth today is trying to be more and more mature.
2 comments:
The title “Youthful Maturity” really caught my attention. The words “youth” and “mature” don’t typically go together, however, as a result of media and other social influences girls are found doing more “mature” things at younger ages. When I look at the photo and consider its creative elements the first thing that stands out to me is the little girls red lips. It looks like the red lipstick is smeared. This could mean this girl doesn’t have much experience applying makeup, but what seven year old does? I think this is a perfect example of the things girls do to fit in, not because they want to or know how to but because others are doing it around them and on television. The dark color of the picture puts off a negative feeling, as if this girl is not feeling good about her self or is living in a world where she does not know who she is or wants to be. The girl’s dark brown eyes seem to be a focus as well. They remind me of a never-ending black tunnel, just like the beauty standards for young women and girls. The last creative element that stands out to me is the large amount of white in the picture, representing the purity, youthfulness and joy found in young girls that can so easily be taken away by beauty standards. Overall, I think this was a great representation of the impact society has on girls. I personally have seen more and more children wearing make up, coloring hair, and obsessing over clothes and younger ages.
I like the way this picture was set up because its composition and colors may say a lot about the hidden meanings. First what caught my attention is that reflection of the young girl in the mirror takes a large portion of the picture. Because the main function of any mirror is to reflect the image, so this mirror can be viewed as a way to show general tendencies and mainstreams in the society. Cosmetic industry is getting more popular among very young girls who actually do not need any extra help to look better and younger. Second, what seems very symbolic to me on this picture, is the idea of blurring out everything including the girl except of products of cosmetic industry. Just like in drawing where gray color makes everything look pale and toneless, it impacts the picture in the same way. In particular, it hides youthfulness and natural beauty of young girls. And the last what relates to our class reading about gender scripts is the figurative meaning of pink color of the makeup palette. As a matter of fact, pink is usually attributed to females so in early age young girls are taught to give preferences to a specific color which would distinguish them from boys.
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