From Eva:
The photograph here depicts a 14-year-old girl taking off false eyelashes and makeup at the end of the day. From a very young age, girls are exposed to the harsh standards they are sought to live up to when it comes to beauty and appearance. We’re always hearing the phrase “beauty is pain” and we just accept it, like it’s all worth it. In the photo, I used the creative techniques color, foreground/background, and senses/face to represent the consequences of unrealistic beauty standards on adolescent girls. I chose to make the photo black and white to represent the neutrality of a naked face. I really wanted to capture the face stripped down of the daily armor that makeup can be, the false face or façade that it can represent. To me, black and white kind of represents something raw and natural, therefore I wanted to implement that in showing the natural face and the beauty and realness without makeup. The next technique I used to represent my sub-topic is foreground/background. The focus point of the photo is the side of her face in which makeup remains and she removes her false eyelash. In the background is the blurred mirror reflection of the side of her face which is makeup free. The blurred naked face is seen as unimportant and falls into the background. In a sense it represents the stress on girls to always look their best and be presented well in order to remain relevant and prosper in society, especially as a high school teenager trying to fit in. The last creative technique I used is senses/face. In the reflection you can capture the facial expressions and emotion of the subject. Her face is flat, her eyes are low, and she's hunched over gazing emptily into the mirror. You can physically see the exhaustion and how draining it is to live up to the standards on a daily routine. She seems unhappy and tired, hiding her emotions and true personality behind her makeup. I wanted to show how girls are supposed to seem put-together and happy all the time, but that just isn’t the case.
In her essay The “Two Cultures” of Childhood, Laurie Rudman states that figures such as “Barbie and her legion of imitators represent feminine ideals and encourage such activities as pretend shopping, grooming, and accessorizing.” All over the mass media (television, toys, advertisements) the parameters that define what’s socially acceptable for boys and girls are reinforced daily. Girls are almost always subject to dolls, dress-up, and makeup as their primary interests without much stray. American television shows constantly show the ideal “popular girl” wearing uncomfortable high heels, a full face of makeup, and sexualizing herself at a young age. The photo essay Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield also captures how American culture normalizes and promotes the idea of young women literally killing themselves trying to make themselves beautiful or feel socially accepted based on physical appearance. The essay includes multiple accounts from young women and they’re day to day struggles with beauty standards. One photo shows a girl named Erin (24) at an eating disorder clinic getting weighed which she describes as “the worst part of [her] day” as she fears hearing the “second click at a hundred.” Women spend hours dieting, exercising, putting on makeup, picking out an outfit, etc just to feel socially accepted. Not only do girls have to dress up and have the perfect look, but they must work more than twice as hard in order to be taken just as seriously as their male counterparts. Nobody seems to care about the pain girls go through to feel beautiful, instead we’re ignored, and we let it eat away at us until there is nothing but a hollow shell reflecting the people we once were. It just goes to show the lengths young girls will go to seek that validation and to feel the prettiest, thinnest, and flawless, despite the damage it does to their conscience and self-worth.
Works Cited
Rudman, Laurie A., et al. "The Two Cultures of Childhood." The Social Psychology of
Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. The Guilford Press, 2015, 59-63.
Greenfield , Lauren. “Girl Culture .” GIRL CULTURE - Lauren Greenfield, 2001,
v1.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/girlcult/index.html.
1 comment:
From: Natatia
Hi, Eva! Wow! Your picture really spoke to me. I specifically love that the "naked" part of the subject's face is blurry and not the focus of the picture. I would have never noticed that the other side of her face was makeup free because I was focused on the foreground. I also see that there is a line on the wallpaper behind the subject that is sort of diagonally leaning more toward the side of the subject's face that has makeup on it. I think just like in the "Girl Culture" photo of the lingerie model on the beach, this line can also represent an imbalance between women who conform to beauty ideals and women who do not. I think this shows that society puts so much weight and pressure on women to look beautiful and "presentable". By the line leaning more toward the side of the face with makeup, we can visually see how much of an importance beauty products have in our world.
Thank you for your post, it is incredibly thought-provoking.
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