From Natatia:
I have titled this photo “Beauty Buzz Words” because of all the words advertisements targeted at women and girls have used for decades. Words like “beauty”, “perfection”, “radiant”, “firm”, “youthful”, “lustful”, etc. have been used by advertisers to sell products to women and to set the standard for beauty ideals in our society. This photo is meant to represent the unrealistic beauty standards forced on adolescent girls.
In Lauren Greenfield’s photo essay, “Girl Culture”, Greenfield shines a light on the harmful impacts of unrealistic beauty standards on adolescent girls by showing a series of photos of young girls struggling to assimilate into a culture that tells them to be prettier, thinner, and to all look the same. One of the subjects of Greenfield’s photo essay, Laura, says, “There is so much peer pressure…everyone has to look the same” (Greenfield). Some of the girls documented in Greenfield’s essay talk about jeopardizing their health to better conform to society’s definition of beautiful. One such story comes from Erin who reminisces about the posters of models she would hang on her wall and she would tell herself, “until I can see the bones I see on her, I am not thin enough” (Greenfield). I cut out advertisements from magazines targeted at teenaged and young adult girls because I wanted to also expose how some of these beauty buzz words help perpetuate a culture of monolithic beauty ideals in a world of diversity. When girls pick up their first issue of Cosmopolitan or Harper’s Bazaar, they are a blank canvas and usually searching for the newest fashion trend or tips on how to get the perfect wing-tip liner. They look at these magazines with pure intentions and are inundated with advertisements that tell them that their hair isn’t beautiful if it’s frizzy, that their body shape isn’t conventionally pretty, and if they don’t conform to this narrow definition of pretty, they will never get a boyfriend.
The first technique I used in this photo is color. I chose a white background, specifically pieces of printer paper taped together, to represent the purity and impressionability of young girls reading these periodicals. The next technique I used was layering. On top of this innocent and impressionable canvas, I layered photos of models and words from advertisements and story headlines to show how innocence in individuality is often covered by beauty standards and how our beauty industry seeks to suffocate and drown out anyone who dares to not conform to these standards. I also wanted this piece to look chaotic, as most of the time trying to live by the ideal standard of beauty is messy and chaotic. Third, I used centering. I centered the Barbie doll at the middle of the picture to show that this is where beauty ideals start for most young girls. Barbie has always been the central figure of beauty for young girls. Around Barbie, I wrote a few things: measurements for the “ideal” body type and key features that girls have sought to replicate for generations since Barbie has existed. Barbie is the key focus of this photo because it is my belief that Barbie is a key part of grooming young girls to be beauty product consumers later in life. I also used models that only matched Barbie’s aesthetic. In two magazines, I found more than enough examples of models who look like Barbie to use. Lastly, I used symbolism. In this photo, I used pink glittery washi tape to hold together the background pieces of paper and to adhere some of the cut-outs to that piece of paper. By using pink glittery tape to connect the white pieces of paper, I wanted this to show how all girls have a connection in that we are all held to certain gender expectations. Although we are different in size, color, and stature, society will continue to hold us to the same ideal of beauty and that is an opportunity for women to connect and commiserate. Also, by only adhering a few of the cut outs to the background, I wanted to show that it only takes a few of these ideals to “stick” in a girl’s mind for it to be harmful.
By using “Beauty Buzz Words”, our society is able to mask problematic expectations for women by using pretty words to make these ideals seem less harmful.
Greenfield, Lauren. Girl Culture. 2002, www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/girlcult/index.html.
1 comment:
From: Madison
Hi Natatia!
First off, I will say I loved the pictures you chose from magazines. Each picture and word are dedicated to female beauty standards that are heavily directed towards young females to “ensure'' that they can become their best, beautiful stunning self. I was really interested in the words you chose to include such as “Defrizz.” This term is directed towards girls and women with frizzy or curly hair, and in society these beauty measures create this disassociation with reality that there are so many different hair types. Having frizzy hair is looked at as being a messy looking female, unkept, and so these terms being enforced and advertised in beauty magazines as bad human external qualities. Your white background allows the reader to dive in and examine each piece, but the ironic thing is this is what most magazines look like, so this photo is powerful. The focus of Barbie and the measurements around her show the true reflections of these beauty norms that are unrealistic and rare. The colors chosen to envy the typical pink and flirty lifestyle also ties in with the separation between male and female. Females are influenced by media all around, which takes these colors and applies them to makeup, clothes, shoes, and many “girls'' items. This essentially is harmful to the growth of society and the growth of females by directing them to look and feel a certain way. This photo and use of magazine images on young generations are geared to breed females into this specific idea of perfectionism. We as consumers of these products are promoting and enabling the media to influence our female youth. I am not sure if this technique was intentionally intended, but the lack of racial representation in these forms of media is so strong, and sadly unnoticeable sometimes as white females are primarily the ones blasted on magazines and shown as the “dream look” or perfect idea of a good, clean, pretty woman.
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