In this
photo, we see a young girl of age 17 applying makeup to herself. The intention
I had in taking this photo was to portray the lengths to which young girls in
society will “beautify” themselves. The first element that becomes evident when
you look at the photo is the young girl in the center. While we can tell that
she is pretty, we observe her putting make up on as a way of covering up the
flaws that she perceives. The lighting in this picture was the most important
element that I wanted to convey. While light streams in through the window
above and behind her, her face is anything but light- it is shadowed, a tired
and defeated look in her eyes. Dark bags are evident and help to portray this
defeated and/or tired feeling she has. The girl is positioned in such a way as
to convey that she is shy and self-conscious- scrunched up, keeping herself
protected so that nothing may harm her. In today’s society, women are actively
marketed at by the beauty industry, constantly having their insecurities examined
with a microscope. This has led to a widespread girl culture that consists of
obsessions with makeup, weight, and dieting. In 2016, “At least 30 million
people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S.” (1).
A large majority of this statistic is young adults- more commonly young girls.
When we pull out and observe the
room around the girl, we are drawn to mess that clutters her floor. Discarded
laundry, makeup strewn along the floor, and stains on the carpet suggest a
feeling of disorganization. The darkish color that they have all help to
symbolize the depressing feeling this girl experiences at having to keep up
this culture. Despite this clutter, our eyes are still drawn to the walls which
lay barren. This symbolizes a certain type of emptiness and suggests that
something may be lacking. In my mind, it symbolizes a lack of personality,
muffled by an obsession with beauty. The combination of loneliness paired with
the subsequent clutter almost becomes contradictory. This contradiction helps
us to truly understand the girl’s state of mind. She receives conflicting
evidence from society- be beautiful but don’t have a self-esteem. The constant
picking at girl’s insecurities by society leaves them raw and open. It leaves
them impressionable and it encourages terrible behaviors and habits to form. In
Laura Greenfield’s photo essay, Girl
Culture (2), we see that many girls have this conflict constantly raging
within their minds, leading them to engage in behaviors that many would find upsetting.
The first photo it opens up to is a 20 year old girl posing in a lingerie-like
bathing suit, going through the motions to make it look like she is about to
take it off. In our culture today, young women are often over-sexualized, even
from a young age. Laura Greenfield’s essay accurately portrays this in just the
first photo. The same concept exists here.
Overall, the photo pokes at the
larger message at hand- the overwhelming effect that beauty culture has on
women and, especially, young girls today. Through good use of lighting and
expression, we can see the true effects of this culture on young girls today.
1 comment:
From: Coral
The positioning of the girl in this photo is beautifully poignant. As the artist said, she is facing away from the light, curled up against herself for protection, seemingly almost from it. But in addition to that, it seems to me she has her back turned to the ugliness the mess behind her signifies. While the makeup in front and beside her is also disorganized, it is makeup, rather dirty clothes or trash. It is the solution to ugliness, and consequently, what she has accepted by her posture.
Her expression deepens the photo as well. Many women (including myself) say they use makeup for themselves rather than for an audience, saying it makes them feel pretty. I think that’s partly true, but without an audience what is beauty? What makes this photo different, though, is that she seems anything but happy to be doing her makeup. She seems to deeply resent that she has any flaws to cover up in the first place. There’s a self-hatred as she looks into a mirror, which is, incidentally, quite small, and could signify the fact that the beauty standard damages women’s self-worth by focusing on often flawed pieces of a whole being, separating our sense of self from our bodies. Our bodies become a collection of parts to be fixed or improved rather than a complete vessel for our souls.
What she is wearing also says something to me. She is in all gray- the color of authority. Although she looks to be wearing pajamas for comfort, she is literally clothed in authority. It wraps her in rules and a lack of bright color, oppressing her with a need to conform to a beauty standard, which, as the artist said, is mentally and even physically dangerous.
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