Empowerment For Women
Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield is the print version of her touring photography exhibit which traveled all over the United States, including Arizona where I first saw it in 2002. It gives us a detailed look at women and girls of all ages and how media shapes female perception of sexuality and body proportions. From fat camps to eating disorder clinics, from beach parties to auditions, Lauren Greenfield captures what it means to be a girl in this contemporary moment. In her final words, she writes, "The body has become the primary canvas on which girls express their identities, insecurities, ambitions, and struggles."
A series of images look at the female relationship to breasts, beginning with 15-year old Amber attempting to force her breasts into the full version demanded by popular culture as her friend watches. This photograph is followed by young girls stuffing their shirts to outrageous dimensions in fun. Next, a young woman examines her post operative body after breast implants. This is juxtaposed to a surgeon performing breast augmentation.
Before the almighty mirror women are encouraged to position their body, adjust their image, and accentuate with products what time takes away or genetics does not give.
13-year-old Hannah describes the importance of preparing daily for school and a big seventh-grade party. She says, "In our group, people get criticized if you don't look a certain way. If you have a flaw, then you will be criticized whether you like it or not."
Self identified as overweight, 13-year-old Lisa explains the importance of consumer culture at her school. She says, "It's like everyone has to have a brand name . . . People shouldn't be stereotyped by the way they look. But, unfortunately, that's the way it is, and you can't exactly change that. So you have to live with it. All the time."
Women and girls feel powerless to change the existing pressure to conform to contemporary ideals of female beauty. However, it's not just suburban adolescents anxiously attempting to follow the winnowing media generated body, but also those within the industry.
Captured on a stroll down New York City while several men assess her, 19-year-old Sarah, a model, rationalizes her career. She says, "I don't think my modeling is good for society. I mean, ultimately, what am I doing? I'm making a bunch of little girls feel bad about their bodies and go anorexic. I don't think I'm doing the world any good, but if the client is offering you ten thousand dollars to do a shoot for the day, are you going to say no?"
Countless times, Girl Culture reveals the cost of beauty, a price in which women will pay just about anything. Ruby's Quinceanera (celebration of her 15th birthday) is sixteen thousand dollars. For graduation, girls at Cornelia Conley School of the Holy Child wear expensive wedding dresses and carry roses. In Tennessee, May Day ushers in May gowns in bright colors with contrasting bouquets for tradition. Gucci, Versace, and Prada seem normal accessories to prove both status and quality of womanhood.
Girl Culture is a collection of one arresting picture after another. With assistance and a cheering crowd, a woman backbends to pantomime oral sex on the anticipating male. Moms primp with their youthful daughters before overflowing counters of cosmetics in nearly identical outfits. Fashion show contestants await judgment. Fat camp attendants await measurements. Children of 3, 4, and 5 undulate, re-creating MTV dance steps as they decorate themselves in makeup and heels.
Every female reader will be able to find some image that hauntingly echoes their own pursuit of fitting into girl culture. Lauren Greenfield's Girl Culture is a visual critique of the same magnitude of Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, Joan Brumberg's The Body Project, and Jean Kilborn's Killing Us Softly. However, don't expect careful analysis or directions on how to interpret these images. Lauren Greenfield skillfully presents images and interviews from those photographed and nothing more. It's up to the reader to decide what these images say about girls and culture. If your eyes haven't been opened yet, they will be after seeing these images.