At what point growing up did we realize that we must look, dress, and act a certain way? Way too young...the unrealistic beauty standards on adolescent girls are deteriorating to the soul of a young women. We start developing a sense of what’s expected of us at a very young age, we see our moms getting up extra early to do their makeup or our grandmas fixing up their hair before going out, so they look “socially acceptable”. The consequences of these unrealistic beauty standards are destructive to a young girl’s sense of self. First, it is expensive to be a “girl” in everyday society. In my photo I’ve laid out all the makeup it takes to achieve a “full face”, all together the amount of money spent on this makeup is well over $500. Who could benefit from an extra $500 right now? I know I could. In Lauren Greenfields series of photos called “Girl Culture” there is an image of a girl named Aya,16, who is tearing through her room to find an outfit for school. She has piles upon piles of clothes scattered across her room. Though she has 1,000 options to choose from she is still dealing with internal conflict because she must follow the beauty standard or she’ll most likely be teased. Secondly, we’re not choosing this lifestyle, its being force fed down our throats by television commercials, magazines, YouTube videos, ect. It’s everywhere, we’re subconsciously absorbing these beauty norms every day. Another photo from Lauren Greenfields series includes a photo of a girl Fina,13, who is in a tanning bed. She is 13 years old, why on earth does she feel the need to artificially tan her skin? Oh yes, because our society praises tan skin. In my photo you’ll notice brands and makeup with some very interesting names such as “Naked”, “Fit Me”, “Natural Matte”, and “Photo Ready”. Cosmetic companies use misleading names to make us feel like we’re maintaining our natural beauty when in hindsight we’re just caking this extremely unnatural chemical mixture all over our faces/bodies. Finally, WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS FOR? Why do we wake up an hour earlier than we need to just to get “socially acceptable”? Why do we spend hundreds of dollars on clothes that make us feel uncomfortable? Why do we let men’s ideals about beauty transform the way us women feel about ourselves? “Girl Culture” also includes a photo of a young woman Sara, 19, who is walking down the street in New York City. The photo shows her walking one way down the sidewalk and 3 men approaching her from the other way. They were eyeing her and making comments about her beauty. We do our best to achieve a man’s idea of beauty then proceed to get catcalled and harassed. Yet bullied and teased if we don’t comply with the norms. In my photo, I have casually placed a Dunkin Donuts cup filled with water, for this is the ONLY thing in the entire picture that we need as humans to survive. We as a culture can squash these beauty norms but we choose to let them continue, why?
Works Cited: Greenfield, Lauren. “Girl Culture.” GIRL CULTURE - Lauren Greenfield, v1.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/girlcult/greenfield05.html.
4 comments:
From: Laura
The unrealistic beauty standards for girls seriously distorts the way girls see their bodies and how they perceive their appearances. Girls can spend over an hour putting on makeup and doing their hair and can spend fifteen minutes or more looking for the perfect, cool outfit and all of that is done just to be considered acceptable by society. The photo that I chose which shows lots of different kinds of makeup laid out on a table perfectly illustrates this principle because obviously the girl who owns and uses this makeup has fallen prey to these unrealistic beauty standards and is convinced that without this makeup she will be considered ugly or undesirable by society. She believes that she needs to put on tons of makeup and spend hours on her hair and have the perfect outfit to be considered beautiful and perfect. To me that sounds like a lot of unnecessary work just to get attention. I mean you don’t have to look like a model to be considered beautiful. Take me for example, I don’t wear makeup at all on regular bases, I usually just brush my hair in the morning, and I put on whatever works, but I still think I look beautiful. I don’t need to put tons of makeup on, or have perfect hair, or wear trendy clothes to feel beautiful and confident since I’m that just the way I am. If only society could learn to teach girls to celebrate their natural beauty and not try to force to fit in this one acceptable category of beauty then maybe girls would be more confident in themselves and appreciate their natural beauty for what it is and actually try to highlight it, not hide it under a mask of fake beauty thrown at them by society.
From: Oluwagbemiga
Just looking at the multitude of scattered cosmetics, I can tell the topic was on female beauty. There are different cosmetic brands for different parts of the face in the photo. I believe this to signify the absurdity of societal expectations in terms of defining women’s beauty. I also noticed the disorder of the cosmetics on the table. I can assume this to show the frustration of the woman behind the scene. The photographer could also mean it to symbolize the work women have to do behind the scenes to try and match today’s beauty standards. In the summary, the photographer states that the cost of all cosmetics in the picture adds up to $500. This was included to show the audience how expensive “beauty” is for women in America. In the photo, the name of the brand is well presented. This is through the use of proper lighting. The photographer also makes this known in the summary. She states, “the companies use names such as Fit Me and Naked to mislead women into thinking and believing that their products help maintain beauty”.
Overall, I believe the photo and the summary do a great job expressing the topic “Girl Culture”. The emphasizes on society’s view of women’s beauty standards and the toll it puts on women. The photo not only adds to that but also includes how costly and difficult it is to attain and maintain such beauty standards. The use of symbolism, centering and lighting help complement the theme being addressed.
Fro Jessica
The first thing that caught my attention was the “NAKED” palette, which makes me wonder why brands are naming a makeup product naked, when makeup does not make us naked at all. It also brings a sexualization to the makeup, just like the Too Faced mascara “Better Than Sex”. I have also always been stressed when doing my makeup because of the beauty standards and how we must contour our face to look a certain shape, shape our eyebrows and our lips. The candles also show a contradiction in the picture, because having candles lit are supposed to calm someone, so by having so many candles lit, it really shows the stress into what just putting on makeup can do to someone not only physically, but mentally. There are also so many different brushes we are expected to buy and know how to use, and the beauty industry makes money from these brushes because we see you-tubers using over 10 different brushes just for one eye shadow tutorial, and by us seeing these brushes, we feel obliged to buy them. It could only take about 3 brushes, but because of what is shown in the media, we spend our money on all these brushes just for them to do the same result as one would do. I also notice the green concealer, which is to cancel out redness. Media has shown that acne, or any red blemishes such as rosacea is not “normal” and needs to be covered, even though everyone mostly deals with acne.
I never thought about what it must cost to achieve a “socially acceptable look” or to achieve what others find “beautiful”. It is so sad that women develop the internal anxiety to look a certain way at such a young age. The societal standards placed on young women are crushing and I think you captured it perfectly. I especially like how you pointed out the names on some of the pieces of makeup. I never realized that the make up companies strategically named their products to further trap people into the false ideology of what’s beautiful. To make things worse, the prices are sickening. $500???? That’s a whole month’s rent in some states. I love your essay with the picture and I love that the picture has such a deep-rooted meaning.
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