In this photo, a teenage girl named Brooke Rocko is seen trying on a corset. Corsets have been used throughout many years with women, and it would keep a lady’s posture straight, and make them appear thinner than what they are. To some, this is just a picture of a girl trying on a corset, but if you look in depth, you notice the many problems that young girls face in our society.
In the photo essay “Girl Culture” by Lauren Greenfield, she displays different photos of girls in different social situation, all showing what girls in our culture must face with every day to exceed what is “normal” and “appropriate”. In my photo, Brooke is seen trying on a black corsage. I chose the color black, to represent the darkness of the struggles that teenage girls are going through to fit in, even though it may cause pain. Brooke is also looking down, not looking in the mirror, and this is covering her sense of vision to show that she is blind to the pain she is putting her body through.
Girls have been shown to be tall, skinny, long blonde hair, and perfect skin to be what is accepted in our culture. Stores like “Victoria Secret” show these types of girls, and when young teenage girls watch these ads, they see that this is what men will like, and what everyone accepts. In the picture, you see a small Victoria Secret bag, which not only shows that Brooke is following the ads, but the size of the bag has a huge meaning. Their bags are so small, because their products are made small, specifically for small women. Their clothing is small cloth material, to cover up a girls most prized possession, aka their breasts and vagina. A girl’s vagina is seen as pure, like the color white. Therefore, I chose to have Brooke wear a black corset, because even though teenage girls are showed as pure, the black contradicts society’s views.
Brooke is also pictured as the center of the picture, but through the mirror she looks smaller than what she really is, and mirrors have been used to trick girls into thinking that they are smaller than what they are, to buy certain products. The colors around Brooke are also very light, pastel blues and beach themed, which in general is seen as calming, even though what Brooke is going through is anything but calm.
With so much going on in this picture, with symbolism, centering, color and senses, this shows what girls face with every day, and this is just one situation of a girl trying to fit into something to appear skinny because that is what is accepted in girl culture. As children, us girls are shown in magazine ads, and television ads of what older girls look like, and we grow up trying to squeeze into that “one size fits all” model. This is brainwashing young girls and making them do things that can physically injure their bodies, but also injure their mental view on how they should look, and cause insecurities with one’s self.
Bibliography
Greenfield, Lauren. “GIRL CULTURE.” GIRL CULTURE - Lauren Greenfield, 2001, v1.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/girlcult/index.html.
1 comment:
From: Brianna
From a young age, girls watch films and ads about princesses that are skinny, white, and almost always blonde. They want to be them because these princesses are so beautiful and usually are the protagonists of the movies. This makes girls want to look this way from a young age. In social media, Instagram models post pictures of themselves looking “perfect”. But I ask myself this question every day, what is a perfect body? In my opinion, there isn’t a perfect body. Everyone at least has something that they are insecure about.
Movies, advertisements, social media, and others society contributions are hurting girls and making them want to fit in society, looking beautiful and disregarding their own health. In the photo that is shown above, a girl is trying to fit into a corset but is not aware that this could hurt her blood circulation, damage something in her stomach, or not breath very well for the rest of the day. This could potentially hurt her health, but she doesn’t care about that. As people always say, “no pain no gain”. She wants to fit in a society where they don’t care about a girl’s health and could potentially cause a visit to the ER. She might be frustrated or depressed because she is trying her very best to fit in this society of bullies. Just like bullies mostly hurt people physically, society damages people’s consciousness (mentally).
In Lauren Greenfield’s pictures, it shows how much girls are wanting to be like the Instagram models and princesses who have so many followers. But we can change that together as girls; we can still exercise for a healthy lifestyle but not so much that make us look anorexic.
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