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Girl Culture

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With a lens that doesn't shy away from the 4 year old in a mini sequined gown, the cheesy backstage of a Las Vegas strip club, a surgical suite during a breast augmentation, or Panama Beach, FL at spring break, Lauren Greenfield's wide ranging photoessay provides an honest insider's view of the culture that forges women in the U.S. today. Anyone raising girls, anyone who was a girl, and anyone interested in trying to understand women, should have this book! What a magnificent find!

Lauren Greenfield's photographs from her most recent project, Girl Culture,
represents an important return to traditional photography and a break with
the popular, staged work of the past decade. Using a 35mm camera and
working intuitively and spontaneously, Greenfield returns to the basics -
picturing that which is important and reorganizing the chaos of the real
world into compelling and complex images that speak to our experiences as
emotional beings. This may sound simple, but over the past ten years,
photographers have moved far from the traditional approach and into the
imaginative fictions of Hollywood films, utilizing elaborate productions
crews and massive digital prints. Greenfield, in a powerful and compelling
exhibition and book, brings photography back down to earth, and in doing so,
signals a shift in contemporary picture making.

Greenfield has spent more than five years photographing young women and
girls, plumbing the zeitgeist for clues about body image, self-esteem,
consumerism and sexuality. As you can imagine, the results are not pretty.
They are skewed toward the complicated psychological arena where
self-awareness is mixed with victimization. The exhibition and book are
quite different experiences due to the fact that the publication included
interviews with the subjects. For a full appreciation of how vital this
work is to photography and to women¹s studies, it is important to see them
both. I found a pervasive sadness to the interviews, wherein women spoke of
the pressures to be thin, stylish and sexual and then expressed admiration
for these ideals, like an alcoholic who continues drinking, encouraging
others to join in.

The exhibition at Stephen Cohen Gallery is immediately remarkable due to the
intimate scale of the photographs. The prints range from 11 by 14 inches to
16 by 20 inches with only a few being larger. This changes the experience
of the work by drawing the viewers in close to read and interpret the
images. Besides the modest print size, when we get close to the
photographs, we can see the tiny specks of grain and notice that some of
them are a bit out of focus. This may seem sound like a criticism, but
these imperfections are a refreshing departure from the majority of
contemporary photography, suggesting the haphazard complexity of real life
and the medium¹s dependence on the artist¹s unique vision.

Greenfield¹s photographs are well known from major magazines and often
display a biting criticism and acerbic wit. These characteristics are used
mercilessly in some of the images. Lillian, then 18, shops at Kirna Zabete,
New York shows the pretty blonde sitting in an upscale boutique, holding a
red shoe. Her mouth hangs open in mid-sentence and its red-lined, oval
shape is echoed in the red, open-toed, ankle-strapped slingback she is
holding. Lillian reeks of having too much money and too little taste, and
the photograph is an indictment of her shallowness and vanity. In the
interview, Lillian says she hates being a blonde but claims to be so only
because she¹s an actress. Her awareness of the burden of beauty is
outweighed by her greedy consumerism. Another highly critical image shows
pornographic film star Taylor Wayne, who, dripping in jewelry, strikes a
clichéd pose, her massive breasts practically bursting from her dress. She
looks like a parody of herself, more of a mannequin than a real woman.

Greenfield¹s tone is more forgiving when she examines subjects who have less
control over their lives. The photographs of kids and teenagers, some at
weight-loss camp, exude a compassion that is balanced with the artist¹s
critical eye. Paula, 11, at weight-loss camp, Catskill, New York is
heartbreaking but empowering. Apprehensive of the camera, the pudgy girl
with crimson cheeks turns her body away, clasping her hands in front of her
chest defensively. Greenfield photographs her in the shade without a flash,
and the soft, cool-cyan light bespeaks the girl¹s vulnerability. Using
wide-angle lens and slightly tilting the camera, she keeps our attention on
the girl¹s face and accents her expression and wide body. The image is
gentle but also has the effect of suggesting her inner power and creates an
optimism not seen in the more critical pictures. So too with the image of
Joyce, Elysia and Alison at their friend¹s sixteenth birthday party.
Instead of primping or showing off, the three girls embrace and comfort each
other. The picture is so intimate that it reveals an emotional support
system so vital to many of the younger women pictured here.

The power and importance of Greenfield¹s work arises from its combination of
poignant subject matter, powerful compositions and framing, and the profound
connection between the subject and tradition the artist creates through her
masterful technique. The only weakness in the work is the dense contrast
between shadows and lights in many of the prints which takes away from their
emotional strengths. Greenfield is often referred to as a photojournalist,
which understates her importance in the art world. She is certainly not
driven to make pictures just because she is on assignment, but more likely
out of the desire to express her personal vision through relevant subjects.
Like Nan Goldin who, in 1987, showed that there was more to photography than
postmodern intellectualism, Greenfield takes us away from the monotonous,
digitized unreality of so much contemporary fine art photography. In so
doing, she reestablishes the primacy of the individual artist¹s vision in
connecting passion and subject matter.

They are always blond, it seems, and always thin: the Popular Girls of every woman's haunted teenage memories. They are named Monique or Sandy or, of course, Heather, and their lithe legs stretch a mile from their fashionably rolled-up shorts to their totally cool sneakers - a degree of stylistic perfection unattainable by mere mortals. They seem so preternaturally gifted that you wonder whether such grace can persist into adulthood. (Maybe you hope it doesn't.) You also wonder whether these girls are happy.
Lauren Greenfield wondered just that when she traveled to Edina, Minnesota, in 1998 to photograph a story for The New York Times Magazine on the expansive topic of "being 13." Her pictures of the glorious blond Alpha Girls ruling over the seventh grade there began to provide an answer. The photos also began to convince Greenfield that there was much to be revealed about the real lives of American girls. It all led to a new book, Girl Culture (Chronicle Books, $40), an ambitious effort that blurs the distinction between photojournalism, art, and social science. (An accompanying exhibition of the images opened in October at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York and will be traveling to the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles in December and the Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco in January.) "What I learned shooting the 'popular girls' in Edina was how hard it was to stay on top," says Greenfield, "and how insecure they felt about their social position. One said she was afraid she would come to school one day and suddenly find that she wasn't in the popular group anymore. Another girl said that if she could do it over again, she'd rather have real friends who liked her for who she was." Instead, she was rewarded for who she appeared to be.
That raw truth - the tyranny of appearance in the lives of young girls and women-lies at the center of Greenfield's book. The girls in Girl Culture range from four-year-olds playing dress-up in spangly princess outfits to awkward teenagers arriving at a weight-loss summer camp to Las Vegas showgirls and strippers plying their trade. In one way or another, all of them are defined by how they look. Like the photographs in Greenfield's first book, 1997's acclaimed Fast Forward: Growing Up in the Shadow of Hollywood, the images in Girl Culture are often weighty with unflinching detail. In one shot, a showgirl named Anne-Margaret is seen reflected in her dressing-room mirror at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. Taped to the side of the mirror is a handwritten note that reads I APPROVE OF MYSELF alongside pictures of models the dancer admires. That picture, shot on assignment for Stern magazine, got Greenfield thinking "about how girls construct their identities, how they use pieces of the outside world to express themselves."
Soon, Greenfield, who recently became a member of the VII photo agency, began seeing aspects of girl culture all around her: on an assignment in Florida shooting a story on spring break, with its "girls gone wild" partying; while photographing Chattanooga, Tennessee, debutantes who complained about being fat as a size four; and while shooting the Edina teenagers, whose unforgiving social structure was described by one of their mothers as consisting of "tier-one, tier-two, and tier-three girls." Putting the book together, Greenfield says, was an intuitive process. "I made a lot of different pictures that seemed like pieces of the puzzle," she says, "but I didn't know until I was editing it whether they would all fit together." The puzzle included some surprising juxtapositions, tying together the worlds of girls and adult women. "When I looked at the exhibitionism of strippers, it reminded me of little girls and how they perform, how they look for approval," the photographer says. "In pictures, you can't help seeing the similarities in dress and body language."
The work was also cathartic. Greenfield was once, after all, a little girl who grew into a woman in the American body culture, and she recounts her own teenage years of chronic dieting, anxiety about her own popularity, and a conviction that her outer appearance reflected the imperfections that lurked on the inside. In this Greenfield has plenty of company. One eating-disorder clinic estimates that 85 percent of adult females wake up each morning dissatisfied with their weight and appearance, determined to somehow replicate the ever-shrinking dimensions of "lollipop" actresses and models (so called because their heads look oversized atop their sticklike frames). Joan Jacobs Brumberg, a historian at Cornell University, who wrote the introduction to Greenfield's book, feels that the current cultural environment, fueled by commercial forces outside the family and community, is actually toxic for adolescent girls "because of the anxieties it generates about the developing female body and sexuality."
One bright spot in this dispiriting landscape of insecurity and self-blame is the rise of girls' athletics, which is credited with giving at least some girls a body identity that arises from their abilities rather than their decorativeness. Greenfield says that the athletes she photographed-including tennis star Venus Williams, members of the Stanford University women's swim team, and players on the Little Indians softball team in Naples, Florida, where girls' softball is a local tradition-had a sense of a goal broader than themselves. "They have a larger and more important context in which to see themselves," she says, "that has to do with making a faster time, or coming through for their team, rather than simply looking good when they walk out the door."
The book also features Greenfield's bracingly honest interviews with some of the girls she photographed, such as Stephanie, 14, whom the photographer met at the weight-loss camp, and Sheena, a 15-year-old struggling with her body image (see page 56). "I think it's a challenging culture for girls to grow up in," Greenfield admits. "My role isn't to condemn it, but to try to show the pieces, to put them together. This book is a subjective view of one aspect of the girl culture. It's not the whole story, but it's the part of the story that leaves no one untouched."

I was walking through a local bookstore when the cover of this book caught my eye, and I was impacted immediately. The cover photo alone evoked a huge number of emotions within me, and I just had to buy the book, though I have never purchased a book of photographs before. I took down the title and author, and ordered this book from Amazon.

I am not surprised that this book evoked such strong emotions from the reviewers I've read on here so far. This is an astonishingly powerful book, and I've never seen anything like it. The incredibly evocative photographs are often coupled with a monologue by girls/young women. Both the photos and the monologues are exceptional looks deep into the psyches of girls and young women. There are average girls, popular girls, Latina girls, African American girls, girls at weight loss camp, girls at an eating disorder clinic, nude girls lap dancing....every kind of young woman imaginable. The photos hit me right in the gut....and I am shocked that I've never before heard of this author. Sometimes, the photos were disturbing, but only because they probably hit "too close to home." Sometimes, the photos were lovely and peaceful. Sometimes, the photos were shocking and beautiful at the same time.

I don't like to "tell the whole story" in my reviews; I think that completely spoils the surprise element for someone reading a book such as this for the first time. So...let me just say that this book of photos is well worth the money; I'd recommend it to any woman who is well beyond her "young woman" years.

I am one of the girls in this book. I was 16 when Lauren photographed me. There is only one photograph of me and there is no story to go along with it. Why? Because I was a teen with a buzz cut who worked for a youth organization as a peer counselor. This does not fit the theme of her book, only the idea that I was controlled by our consumer culture worked to serve her concept so the rest of me was omitted. But hey, I like clothes so I must be a mindless drone of the beast that is consumer culture. I own the book now and I think what she is doing is admirable. Unfortunately I think she only shows one side and I am curious about the rest of the girls who were portrayed so negatively. This book makes a point that needs to be heard. It warns us of the dangers of our own materialism and the portrayal of women in the media. But I am sad that Lauren has not shown the other side, but simply blots it out to make sure she proves her point.

When I first saw this book in my photo class, I thought the images were amazing and frightening at the same time, but I didn't read the text with all the pictures. When I bought it for myself, and got to read everything, it gave me even more of a respect for this work. Her snips of these girls lives rattle and amaze you at the same time. I love this book so much, and I think every girl/woman should look at it.

Of course, it is a cliche that every picture tells a story and a picture is worth a thousand word, but "Girl Culture" can't be described any other way. The pictures so well illustrate the struggles and concerns of today's teenage girl. The dramatic illustrations and accompanying stories prove just how hard it is to grow up female and maintain a sense of self and high self-esteem. Some of the pictures and stories will break your heart, others will inspire anger and disgust, but over all the emotions evoked by this book are powerful and motivating. This book is a must for understanding the lives of teenage girls.

THE NEW YORKER, November, 2002

Sex - its promise and threat - sticks like a second skin to the mostly affluent, mostly teen-age subjects of Greenfield's dizzying documentation of female rites of passage. In Greenfield's photos, printed in the supersaturated pinks and blues of a Britney Spears video, girls visit fat camps, endure breast-enhancement surgery, and lie in tanning beds; they're self-possessed and awkward in equal measure. Among the photos - which together could easily comprise a leaden (and rather predictable) commentary on the excesses of American girlhood - are some startling juxtapositions: in one, a group of smiling, glossy-haired students at a private girl's school hoist their candy-colored bridemaids' dresses to reveal lacy garter belts. In another, an African-American teenager hikes her skirt to reveal legs to a trio of white judges at a model search; the historical allusions are as sad as the expression of resignation on the girl's face...

This book visualises "The Beauty Myth" (by Naomi Wolfe).
I want to be beautiful, who doesn't? But why? Why do women (and increasingly men aswell) have to be beautiful?

The pictures presented are both disturbing - in their context - and insightful. For some reason they leave a grim image of women not liking themselves and wanting to be someone else. On the other hand the book also contains pictures and stories of women and girls who are happy to be who they are.

Read this book along with "The beauty Myth" and you'll never look at another 'beauty'-commercial for clothes or cosmetics the same way you did before. Both books are true 'eye-openers'.

I just got back from Florence, Italy where my fiance and I came across this amazing exhibition called "Girl Culture" at the Forte Belvedere. Along with Gary Winogrand, Nan Goldin and Robert Frank, Lauren Greenfield certainly holds her own both as an artist and as a social commentator. I bought the book and have to say that I was floored by the interviews and additional images not included in the traveling exhibition.

Lauren Greenfield is doing some ground-breaking work here, adding a visual layer to an already burgeoning discourse on modern femininity, the influence of the media and the increasingly deteriorating state of body-image in America.

The cross-section of characters, ages, races, urban/suburban, school-age, college-age serves to hammer home the ubiquity of this "girl culture" experience. The interviews are heart-breaking, the images stark reminders of the dillusion of modern, female self-improvement. It is an inspriational body of work, an important look at our society at this time and place, but most importantly, it is perhaps the most powerful depiction of the 20th Century American female experience that I have ever seen. Bravo!