Lauren Greenfield has greatly shaped my own ideas. She documented through photography young girls getting ready to go out, but also getting ready to go to school and the regimes they go through to make themselves look perfect and the pressures they face.
In addition to this she produced a short documentary film called ‘Girl culture’ in which she shot girls dealing with eating disorders. Watching this helped me shape my own ideas as it showed the pressure that girls go through to be thin. Through her photographs and documentary film on ‘Girl Culture’ I learnt that magazines are hugely influential on what girls base their body image on and that sometimes it can push a lot of girls too far.
Ad busters were also a huge influence in relation to my own ideas, they too set out to challenge social norms specifically the social norms of consumerism. ‘We are working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society’ (adbuster.org). In this sense challenging the norms of consumerism greatly links to my topic. So many women by products because they want to look like the model on the tv, the pop star on the radio- again conforming to the norms of society. From Ad busters I have learnt that the media often doesn’t show us the truth about women and celebrity appearance that so many girls base their own appearances on.
Lastly photographers Jenny Saville and Bill Brandt Show women’s bodies in a way that differs from the norms of society and the way women and the media think they should look. These two photographers helped me develop my own set of photographs on skin and the body. I also wish to further practically research the way we know how to pose and where this knowledge comes from?
Jenny Saville
Bill Brandt
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