Girl Culture
by Lauren Greenfield
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lauren GreenfieldEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2002-09-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 156
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Book Reviews of Girl Culture
Book Review: Interesting, but sensationalist.
Summary: 3 Stars
In very brief terms, this is indicated as an examination of the way today's North American cultural superficiality often results in appearance being the sole, all-encompassing purpose of girls' lives. Indeed, even when one accounts for clear editorial bias, it is successful (and quite disturbing) in expressing to what extent this can be true.
It's funny, therefore, how Greenfield as a photographer almost exclusively chooses attractive girls to photograph. Aside from weight issues, there is almost no examination of how these cultural values impact, say, ugly girls. There's this sense throughout the book that attractive girls, strippers and models, as well as their sex lives, are more interesting to the photographer and her audience than less glamourous types.
It seems as if, in choosing her subjects, Greenfield is affected by the very values she is attempting to expose. After all, who wants to see photographs of ugly girls? Note the fact that the cover of this book, featuring a moderately attractive young blonde exposing her cleavage, almost reads like a clothing ad. Many clothing ads even have similar underlying dark, self-critical elements (see Terry Richardson's advertising work for example). It seems as if this cover is meant to attract readers in the same way that these advertisements do, and appeal to the very desire to see attractive sexualised young females that the book attempts to criticise.
There is a fine line between sensationalism and criticism here, and certainly this book DOES make one look at attractive women differently after reading it. However, though this book does successfully expose some very interesting elements of North American culture, its focus on attractive subjects, sexualised professions and teenage sexuality gives it a very sensationalist overall feel, and tips the scale away from it being truly relevant criticism.
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