From: Naomi
My photo is of two boxes side-by-side. The box on the left is a memory box, filled to the brim and overflowing with birthday cards, letters from friends, souvenirs, and gold ribbons. Next to it is an identical box, yet it holds very different contents. The box on the right contains neatly organized eyeliners, eyeshadows, lip-glosses, blushes, and other forms of makeup. The goal of this photo is to illustrate the transition from childhood to teenage years that young girls make, in which they quickly fall victim to expectations of rigid femininity. For many young women, memories of their teenage years are defined by their physical appearance: what haircut they had, their makeup routine, which products they used, their proficiency in their makeup skills. These memories differ from those of early childhood, where girls are more free to make memories without worrying about their eyeliner or lip color. This change occurs because from a very young age, most of the representation little girls see in TV and movies is made up of feminine teenage girls who only exist as extensions of their male peers who take a more important role in the story (Pollitt, 1991). This is the “Smurfette Principle” coined by Katha Pollitt, and it helps to explain that young girls grow into societal pressures of aesthetic beauty and rigid feminization largely due to the media they consume from a very young age.
One creative technique I used in taking this photo was color. The box on the left, which represents memories of young childhood, is much more vibrant than the one on the right. What especially stands out is the gold ribbon. Gold has the connotation of achievement and helps to convey the message that little girls are often encouraged to achieve and explore, yet when they grow older, they’re expected to conform. The box on the right that represents these later years is much more dull. The only color that really stands out is the bright pink tube of lip-gloss. What I wanted to illustrate was that when teenage girls are allowed to stand out, it is often only through hyper-femininity.
The other creative technique I used was line. The contents of the box are unorganized and are stowed away somewhat haphazardly. In contrast, the box of makeup is neatly organized; the brushes and eyeliners form parallel lines, and none of the items are stacked on top of each other or shoved in at odd angles. This is representative of the idea that the “ideal” woman is tidy, organized, and clean. The clean lines convey uniformity not just in how the makeup is organized, but also in how teenage girls use the makeup to conform to the aesthetic trends and styles of the time.
Sources:
Pollitt, Katha. “Hers; The Smurfette Principle.” The New York Times, 7 Apr. 1991.
1 comment:
From: Kiarra
Hi Naomi! Your photo really stuck out to me, as I remember making similar memory boxes growing up and finding that I had fewer memories to fill them with throughout the years. I love the creative choice to stick with mostly monotone makeup for the box on the right and to include very little choice in the different kinds of makeup included. As girls grow into teenagers, there is so much pressure to wear makeup, but that makeup cannot be “too much,” “too colorful,” or “too different,” as these girls risk social isolation if they deviate from what society has deemed “normal makeup.” I also really like the difference in how much space is taken up by the contents of each box; to me, the space represents the shift in how much room girls are allowed to take up as they grow older. Little girls are allowed the space to be loud, silly, and energetic, but as they grow older, they are forced to abandon that bright, happy energy, leaving that space for the boys to take up instead. For me, the difference in the contents of each box also symbolizes the difference in how girls define themselves and their lives throughout childhood. In their early years, girls are focused solely on their relationships with other people, represented by all the cards on the left, while teenage girls are forced under more societal pressures that they feel they have to define themselves by, represented by the makeup on the right.
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