“I didn't eat yesterday
And I'm not going to eat today
And I'm not going to eat tomorrow
'Cuz I'm going to be a supermodel!”
Think back. Chances are pretty good that if you are a woman you desperately wanted to be a model or an actress at one point in your life, be it fifteen years ago or fifteen minutes ago. If you’re a man, there’s certainly an excellent chance that you aspired to date a supermodel at some juncture. Though I wince while doing it, I can remember high school pretty well. My self-esteem was somewhere in the subterranean level and it raised or lowered based on my perceived social status, looks, and current boyfriend.
Unfortunately, things aren’t getting much better for today’s girls. The issues I struggled with in college are popping up in high schools and the problems of my high school days are now considered middle school shenanigans. Back in April I wrote about the sexualization of girls, a disturbing situation I call ‘sexy babies.’ This issue must be on a lot of mom’s minds, because it was the most traffic I’ve ever had on my site. As a result of the piece, I was sent a copy of Cover Girl Culture, a documentary addressing the world of fashion, modeling, advertising, and their impact on tween and teen girls.
I have watched this film twice and taken four furiously typed pages of notes. They are barely legible, even typed, and contain dozens of punctuations such as, “HA!” and “WTF?” I consider myself media literate, but this documentary still made my jaw drop. The director, Nicole Clark, wove together interviews with young girls, fashion magazine execs, psychologists, motivational speakers, models, and teachers, which she then layered with images from Teen Vogue and ELLE magazines in an incredibly powerful way. I promise you, if you have a daughter, you will begin seriously considering home schooling within the first fifteen minutes of this film.
A Teen Vogue featured celebrity fashionista.
The most difficult part of this review is deciding which fashion editor’s quotes to use, as they were all so horrifying. The Teen Vogue and ELLE editors interviewed maintain earnest faces while insisting their magazines feature healthy body images, relevant lifestyle articles, and a needed escape into fashion fantasy. They help girls “reinvent themselves and decide who they are going to be.” How generous. Anne Slowey, a Feature Editor at ELLE and currently my new imagined face of Satan, referred to the fashion layouts as personally rewarding for readers. “We are realistic that this [fashion spread] is a dream. The ‘dream pages.’ Women project themselves into the fantasy of what they want to see for themselves. The magic of that exercise is joyful, it’s really rewarding.” Oh, definitely. Clearly drugs are still a huge problem in the fashion world.
The notes I scribbled to myself while watching all these images were less than joyful: “More fashion pages that make me want to gag. And starve. And weep … Ugh. Too skinny. …That’s just gross … Why are we selling this shit to our kids?” The sad news is that our kids are buying it in spades. The film is filled with interviews with girls from ages 6 to 18. It's the hardest part to watch, as the girls all want to change their faces, bodies, and looks. They want to be supermodels, because they think it's the most effective way to be respected and admired.
One particular comment by an interviewee struck a nerve with me. In reference to some advertising, she said, “I resent that you are showing these things to my young child.” Correction: You are showing these things to your young child. I control my child’s media consumption closely, particularly advertising. I have made a commitment to my daughter, and that is to be aware of what is happening in her world, educate her on what is happening in her world, and protect her from what is happening until she can handle it for herself.
From recent ELLE cover shoots. Et Tu, Gwen Stefani?
Marketers and advertisers are smarter than you. (If not smarter, definitely wilier. Don’t take offense – it’s their job.) If you let them, they will find your fears, and they will play to them. They will figure out who you are, and how to get in, and will then tell you who you should strive to be. The best way to win against these attacks? Don’t read/watch/listen. Once you’ve thrown out your juicy celebrity gossip rags and glossy fashion mags and canceled your cable, stay vigilant. Become media literate, assess and treat your own self-image issues, and make sure you and your partner share the same values in raising your children.
Cover Girl Culture features a startling statistic about a year’s subscription to Teen Vogue: It contains 1,730 pages of advertisements and 590 pages of articles. That means the few articles featuring real girls and covering real issues are sandwiched between hundreds of images of skinny, sexualized advertising. I spent some time online at both ELLE and Teen Vogue. The sites were hard to navigate, featuring hundreds of pages and tons of advertising. To get through the ELLE content, I had to click out of a full page Stoli Vodka ad no less than 12 times – with every link the ad reappeared. Teen Vogue was dense with celebrity pictures, fashion tips, and beauty advice. The message was clear – this is how you need to look; this is who you should be. The ELLE homepage is financed by Macy’s and their “Impulse” campaign. A link to Macy’s and the tagline “Love it; Want it; Get it now” is plastered all over the website.
One of Teen Vogue's featured 'real girls' fashion inspiration.
Images from Teen Vogue's current Prom inspiration webpages.
I don't know many high schoolers who look this stylized.
If you have a child, watching Cover Girl Culture is a great way to up your own media literacy. It is powerful, educational, and happily, accessible. While I love Jean Kilbourne and everything she does, her films are difficult to find for personal use. You can’t take her films out of the reference section of our library, they are not on Netflix, and at roughly $250 a pop, they’re not in my budget. For $29, you can get a copy of Cover Girl Culture for personal use, which I really appreciate as an individual consumer.
I was able to convince my husband to watch the film with me, and his response was just as interesting as the documentary itself. When I wasn’t swearing at the screen or keeping up a running side commentary, I was watching him sideways to see how he was reacting. When it was over, he said, “You are L’s best role model. I can be a role model, but only to a point. You are it.” The film must have left a lasting mark on him, as he randomly shouted out over the next few days, “YOU ARE HER ROLE MODEL!”
In the end, this is the real message. Children are incredibly impressionable and are mimicking what they see before they can even talk. A psychologist featured in the film names a positive maternal self-image as the first line of defense against the media attack on our children. My heart broke when I first saw my daughter checking out her own butt in the mirror – a behavior I have not been able to break her of, and one she learned from me. Recently I realized the danger in letting her sit on the sink with me while I do my makeup. Running out of the house last week she yelled, “Wait! I have to put my pretty face on!” Ouch. A tender mother-daughter morning ritual is put aside and I now sneak my makeup on while she’s doing something else. On a good day, I skip the make up altogether and show her that our faces are ‘pretty faces’ all on their own. It looks like we’re both growing.
You can see more of Nicole Clark's work at www.covergirlculture.com.
Good stuff, gave me a chill. I often stress over my role model role for my son and twin girls...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for this great review! Nicole is a dear friend of mine and it does my heart good to see her valuable work getting some of the attention it so deserves.
ReplyDeleteAs a nanny, veteran parenting class instructor and early childhood specialist, I can't stress enough how much more powerful are images than words to the developing mind. You can say "Do as I say, not as I do" til you're blue in the face and your child will still imitate your behavior before s/he will take your advice - simply because that is the way we humans learn.
So the media gets this, and uses it to further the enrichment of those behind the scenes, at the expense of our children, limiting their self-esteem and narrowing their options... unless parents take charge and protect their children in the ways you describe, to avert this crime against them.
Thanks, Penny, for taking the time to highlight this crucial issue, review and promote Cover Girl Culture, and share you and your husband's great example of a "best parenting practice" in counteracting the insidious influence of child-objectifying media.
Kristina
That women still want to wear makeup reflects a failure of the feminist movement in particular and the immaturity of our culture in general. Makeup is a mask that allows women to tap into corporate power. I don't mean corporate as in business, but rather corporate as in the power of the group versus the individual.
ReplyDeleteMen achieve this power by actually belonging to corporations - whether they are lodge brothers or corporate raiders. Women counter by painting their faces. Hiding physical imperfections or accentuating certain features makes sense only if the result is more power for the individual, whether sexual, social, or corporate.
Why makeup? The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss once asked a native informant why his people tattooed their bodies. "Because we are not animals," was the reply. That women still use makeup is a reflection of their continuing status as not-quite-human. To put it in a more Lévi-Straussian mode, women without makeup are still seen as "natural," while men without makeup are seen as "cultural."
By acceding to cosmetic industry standards of beauty, women who wear makeup promote a status quo that says women are not equal to men. Men can be "cultural" just by showing up. Women, to participate in the culture, must put on a corporate mask. While a woman who uses makeup is considered "cultural," a man who uses makeup is considered absurd. Mass media meditations on masculine makeup — like Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, and Mrs. Doubtfire — are always comedies.
Madison Avenue-driven cosmetic companies have made some inroads into the use of body fragrance by men, but they have not yet found the right inducement for men to paint their faces, highlight their eyes, and gloss their lips. My suggestion is that advertisers market tattoos as acceptable body paint for men. Invent a tattoo "makeup" that needs regular renewal but involves some pain to apply, and your fortune is made.
In sports, the play of the game depends on who makes up the rules. In gender relations, the play of game depends on who rules the makeup.
This really resonates with me, as I've been railing lately at the various bloggers I've seen popping up and condemning the gross over-sexualization of our young girls--who then lay all the blame at the feet of the mothers. My first instinct is to remind them that while mothers certainly have our part in trying to minimize the damage, the finger should not be pointed strictly at us. We are, after all, just as vulnerable as anyone else to the effects, which we often internalize and then act out by focusing just a tad too intently on our own bodies, or refusing to let the world see us while our faces are bare, etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I watch my daughters try to navigate the social world of elementary school. And I can't help but marvel at the manner in which, everytime they sneak lip-gloss from my make-up bag, or stand in front of my full-legnth mirror and criticize their appearance, they so easily just brush off every single one of my "there's more to us than how we look--let's develop our awesome brains!" sermons. There's no denying the profound effects that their peers have on their social development, their self-image,and their beliefs about the world around them.
But you've reminded me of the ways in which I still contribute to the problem--even while insisting that I'm just SO aware that surely I'm completely blameless (accurate, no. Nauseating, probably).
I wonder how many times my daughters have heard me talk about my own body with disgust? or obsess over my hair, or comment on the appearance of a female that we see on television or in a store.
And this --why haven't I pushed for them to play team sports? I know all too well the positive impact that sports has on my son. Not only does he learn how to be physical with his body-which means appreciating it for something other than its appearance and learning to be more comfortable in it--he gets to learn the importance of working as a team, the importance of responsibility, and the importance of respect. I saw him develop from a self-conscious child into a confident young man, and I attribute a lot of it to his participation in sports. Why have I chosen to deprive my daughters of something so positive?
Sigh. It appears that I myself have a long way to go. It never ceases to amaze me just how pervasive it is. So yes....while I do whole-heartedly reject some of the finger-pointing I've seen at mothers lately, I myself need to be dragged back down to earth on occasion and made aware of how I unwittingly contribute to the problem. Thank you for the timely reminder.
I like to make love with Gwen Stefani.I am a white libra man,my real nickname is sunshine.my name is jefferysteininger@gmail.com my phone number is 1-626-915-8635
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