This project was so much fun. I have been reminded how wonderful, horrible, honest, decetful, photography is. A photo can say whatever the photographer wants it to say. In the end pictures are truly worth a thousand words.
What I Understand:
Greenfield's project must have been so fascinating to undertake. Everything I know about L.A. I have seen in film and heard first hand from friends who live and visit there. Her subjects were diverse enough to give a pretty good idea about what the life or a teen in LA is like but I also liked that she explained "This work in no way aims to present a definitive picture either of growing up in LA or of any particular individual". I think it's important that she stated she wasn't speaking for an entire culture, she was speaking from her personal experience.
Our culture is filled with all sorts of disturbing dominant ideologies and Greenfield pointed out that one such ideal for youth in L.A. is "the importance of image and celebrity. Magazines, TV, and any sort of mass are filled to the brim with pictures of Photoshoped celebrities. L.A. is where Hollywood lives, where everything media is filmed, and where kids growing up in that community learn to follow by example. Greenfield points out that socio-economic status has little to do the fact that teens growing up surrounded by an superficial and image driven community "are preoccupied with becoming other than than they are".
Connections:
I think that Greenfield would most definitely agree with Rebecca Raby's five discourses. In fact, Greenfield essentially put Raby's principle's into action by finding evidence and examples in the real world. For example Greenfield gave countless examples of how kids are subjects of pleasureable consumption in that teens are a target group for corporations and kids tend to buy what they are told to buy if it's cool. Capitolism takes advantage of the vulnerability of young buyers through product placement or advertising using a celebrity to sell products.
Greenfield points to the growth in popularity of hiphop in the 90's and it's effects on youth. As we spoke about last class, popular forms of hiphop have become something quite different than the art form began as. Greenfield describes "affluent kids dressed and talked like gangsters; inner city kids simulated the trapping of wealth". These same kids are not only extremely image conscious, they are also acting older and wanting to be older. I found a video of some teen girls talking about the negative aspects of kids acting like adults; check it out.
Questions:
I feel as if the terms teenager spans beyond 19. Maybe its just me but I constantly feel teen-like. I'm not saying that I think I'm inmature, I just think that Raby's five discourses and Greenfields field research are apparent in "kids" in there 20's and beyond. As we discussed in this classes contextual framework, teens are so often seen as an alien life form. I don't think we're all that different, we just see things through a new set of eyes that allow better perspectives of the world. Am I alone?
no, you're not, i completely agree that the notion that you get one day older (turn 20) and suddenly all these concepts dont apply is total crap. you dont have to be immature to be fitted into those five discources. they definatly apply- but that is the essence of our life- that we are constantly chnaging beings and are always reflective of who we are and where we fit into those around us. Eveeryone in a slightly different life stage then ourselves will want ot catagorize themeselves as difinitivly like us or unlike us depending on the point they are trying to make.
ReplyDeleteand i would argue that this is dangerous and causes a divide in seeing someone as a person
and treating them as such