Blog Post #19: Visual Interpretation

"Lauren Greenfield Photography - Girl Culture Photographs." Lauren Greenfield Photography - Girl Culture Photographs. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2015.

Girl Culture & the Thin Ideal: When Does the Humor Go Too Far?

I find the comical aspect of this photograph interesting. At first glance, this photo looks harmless-simply two teenage girls making a joke about "bikini bodies." However, if the underlying meaning of this photo is analyzed, we can shed light to the real problem with the humor applied to these girls' perception of body image. In modern society, many young women feel they must live up to a standard of one conformist body shape that is considered attractive. This expectation is clearly depicted in the shirts worn by Morgan and Lisa in the photo. On the surface, the thin ideal may seem like a harmless, even beneficial, goal for young girls. There's always the saying "look good, feel good"; however, this expectation results in eating disorders, social anxiety, cliques, mental abuse, and judgement from adolescent women. Thus, the comical aspect reflects naivety to the implicit problems that our society is facing (now more than ever) with negative body image and the expectation of societal norm that every woman should be thin. I found it intriguing that Laura Greenfield's Girl Culture photo gallery, focusing on body image and expectations of modern women, should include this image. The surface is humorous, yet it has such an underlying relationship to Greenfield's gallery that this photo added depth and implicit meanings to Greenfield's project. 

Laura Greenfield intends her audience to recognize the rapid increase of negative body image amongst girls; especially at a young age. The girls in the photograph are only 13 years old. 13. I know when I was 13, I spent most of my time playing football with my neighbors, and didn't have one worry about my weight or a "bikini body". Greenfield's inclusion of this photograph not only reflects body-image issues at a younger age, but also differences in generations. The obsession with a thin ideal is considered relatively modern to our society, and is clearly presenting dangers already. Greenfield's audience can conclude her message by analyzing the contrast of the thin figures on the t-shirts to the average body types of the 13 year old girls, and the dominance of the t-shirts in the picture. The t-shirts reflect a thin ideal, and are the main focus of this photograph. Judging by the silly expressions the girls are wearing, they are "modeling" these shirts because they feel they should look like the women depicted in them.  

Overall, it is clear this photograph is intended to reflect the growing issue of negative body images in our society of young women today. One can deduce the pressure that adolescents feel for the need to be thin, and one simultaneously assumes the potentially harmful measures individuals will take to achieve this goal. Greenfield's photo essentially comments on the aesthetic-obsessed modern society we exist in today, and attempts to elicit feelings of pity from her audience in order to spark a desire to combat this social trend that will ultimately ruin the innate beauty of individualism.