In this photo, you can see a teenage girl who
is wearing a white t-shirt with black jeans. The girl has a blank look on her
face while staring at the ground, her back to the wall, her arms resting on her
knees, and her phone positioned faced down next to her. On the wall, you can
see multicolored sticky notes around her head, with statements about
appearances on them. Underneath each statement there is a red hashtag with hateful
words attached. Above all of the sticky notes there is a sign that says
“#♀️problems”. You may be thinking “okay and what is the meaning behind it?”.
Well, these are the consequences of beauty
standards, with the influence of media, this is “Girl Culture”. In Lauren Greenfield’s photo essay, “Girl Culture,” she
collected photos that captures the way American culture promotes infatuation with
physical appearances among young ladies. Girls often experience weight
pressures from unrealistic beauty standards which are set by the media. They
see pictures of thin girls in newspaper ads, magazines and on social media who
are praised for having a thin waist, nice booty, flawless skin, and an overall
“perfect” body. Greenfield has a photo of a young lady named Erin, in a
hospital gown being blindly weighed , in the interview Erin said that she would
hang pictures of models on her walls and say, “until I can see the bones I see
on her , I’m not thin enough” (Greenfield 19). Another young lady named Lisa,
in Greenfield’s photo essay states how “there is so much peer pressure... with
the fact that everybody has to look the same” (Greenfield 7). This is the mentality a lot of other young girls have
too, there is obsession with physical appearances of not only yourself but an
obsession with other people’s appearances too, Lillian perfectly describes what
people do, saying, “They suck off your beauty, like vampires”(Greenfield
27).
In my photo, I used the colors red and blue to
represent feelings. The color red represents hate, I wanted to show the hateful
words girls see and hear about their bodies in day to day life. The color blue
represents sadness, so I wrote a few ideal beauty standards on blue sticky
notes to express the feeling girls can get when beauty standards control their
appearance. I chose the color neon orange, and two shades of neon pink to draw
more attention to the background. The color pink also symbolizes girls. I
picked out the white shirt the subject is wearing to represent her innocence,
since she is a young teen. I used the “♀️” to symbolize women /girls and the “#’s”
to symbolize social media’s influence. I strategically placed the subject’s
phone faced down next to her to capture the typical teen reaction when negative
things are commented on a post. I made the subject gaze downward in order to
express the lack of confidence girls often feel when the statements that
scattered around her head are posted or just simply said to them. I used the
subject’s body language to further reveal the lack of confidence and disgust
girls tend to feel when the statements made on the sticky notes are said about their
appearance. I used a high camera to convey how small and insecure girls can
feel when they are compared to other girls.
Overall, we need to encourage people
to dress and express themselves the way they want. We need to teach people that
social media should not control the way you feel about yourself. We need to
encourage young people to break gender norms and be who they want to be. We
need to teach young people not to be so hard on their selves. We as a society need
to strive to make everyone feel comfortable in their own skin.
Works Cited
Greenfield
, Lauren. “Girl Culture .” GIRL
CULTURE - Lauren Greenfield, 2001, v1.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/girlcult/index.html.
3 comments:
From: Maddie I also chose to demonstrate girl culture and unrealistic beauty standards. The sticky note that says “cover up #whore” stood out to me the most because in my photograph I took a photograph of a 11 year old girl wearing a crop top and “booty” shorts to demonstrate how the media sexualizes women bodies and this imprints in young girls that it is ok to dress this way. The #whore pointed out the fact that then when we see this we still judge them and call them names like whore or slut even though we portray women showing a lot of skin as sexy in the media. The sticky note that says “wears makeup #ugly” also stood at to me because I demonstrated this in my photograph but in the way that young girls put makeup on to try to make themselves appear older. The #ugly you added on the sticky note pointed out another perspective to me that young girls also wear make to try to fit the standard we have of beauty, the clear face and perfect eyebrows. The way you have her sitting in the photograph, slouched and looking down to me demonstrates the pain and weight it puts on girls to meet the beauty standards of society.
From: Maddie I also chose to demonstrate girl culture and unrealistic beauty standards. The sticky note that says “cover-up #whore” stood out to me the most because in my photograph I took a photograph of an 11-year-old girl wearing a crop top and “booty” shorts to demonstrate how the media sexualizes women bodies and this imprints in young girls that it is ok to dress this way. The #whore pointed out the fact that then when we see this we still judge them and call them names like whore or slut even though we portray women showing a lot of skin as sexy in the media. The sticky note that says “wear makeup #ugly” also stood at to me because I demonstrated this in my photograph but in the way that young girls put makeup on to try to make themselves appear older. The #ugly you added on the sticky note pointed out another perspective to me that young girls wear make to try to fit the standard we have of beauty, the clear face and perfect eyebrows. The way you have her sitting in the photograph, slouched and looking down, to me demonstrates the pain and weight it puts on girls to meet the beauty standards of society.
“Girl Culture” was the topic that interested the most throughout these discussions. As I myself am a girl and can relate to the societal pressure of trying to fit in to standards of what a girl should act and dress like. As explained in the essay above the girls we are supposed to look up to are always seen as flawless and “perfect”. In reality nobody is perfect, and everyone has flaws, even the people society looks up to. The perfectness comes from photoshop, makeup, and airbrushing effects to distort reality. Distorted reality makes it really hard for girls to realize they are perfect just the way they are. The colors of red and blue were very clever in describing how girls feel when looking at their own beauty based off of hate. The amount of negativity I hear on a daily basis whether it is on social media or people around me talking down on girls is insane. This negativity can really get to people and make them sad and angry which is not fair at all because I bet the girls talking down on them have the same problem. I too feel angry when I cannot live up to the unrealistic beauty standards I have set in my head when in reality I should not be focused on being or looking like others but making myself feel loved. I agree that it is very important that society pushes for everyone to be themselves to learn to love themselves. Social media needs to evolve into a more positive place rather than negative. If this can be accomplished, then many girls will not need to strive to belong to “Girl Culture” in unhealthy ways.
Post a Comment