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A
Conversation with Lauren Greenfield
Julie Schor, author of Born to Buy, made a
study of fifth and sixth graders and found that those
who are more materialistic and consumer-driven develop
higher levels of depression and low self-esteem. Do
these findings corroborate with what you have observed
though the lens?
My
work is not academic research so I don’t feel comfortable
making that kind of connection, but I do see a lot of
consumerism, materialism and low self-esteem and depression.
It would not surprise me if there was research, especially
because part of the game of consumerism and materialism
is that you’re never satisfied and that nothing
is ever enough. But the work that I do is observational,
so I wouldn’t feel comfortable making that kind
of direct connection. Materialism and consumerism seems
to affect girls more than boys, and yet depression I
think is a big problem with boys too. I think low self-esteem
is kind of epidemic with girls more than boys, and it
seems fairly safe to link that with consumerism and
materialism.
I
think that depression and the medication of children
is part of a big trend that we’re in. I don’t
know if people are being diagnosed more or if the number
of kids who need medication is up. But I went to a school
in Missouri, photographing – a very typical American
public school in suburban St. Louis. Both times, there
was a line for meds to the nurse’s office that
went down the hall and around the corner. I have never
seen that in a public school – 14, 15 and 16 year
olds. But I don’t feel like I’m an expert.
I just see a wave, kind of a medicated generation.
You
make astute anthropological documents of popular culture
in America. How do you gain trust of your models?
Access
is kind of my personal strength. As a photographer that
part has always come pretty easily to me, and so it’s
kind of hard
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to
break down how it happens. It’s also kind of magical,
in the sense that you feel like things are going to be impossible.
Like, even before I did this film [Lauren is working on a
film about eating disorders], I didn’t see how you could
walk down the hall with a camera in a clinic, and have that
be ok. And now I do it all the time. It was the same when
I photographed the strippers and showgirls in Vegas for Girl
Culture.
When
I went up there I had no idea how I could use a flash in a
strip club and have that be ok, and have there be patrons
in the club. I was thinking, well, I’ll have to shoot
it with a Leica, and have it be quiet, and I’ll have
to shoot it in black and white so there’s no flash. But
once I broke through with the girls – and the way that
happened was I broke through with the top girl, and she was
kind of powerful in that community, so once she accepted me
a lot of the other girls did too, and so did the management
– then I could do anything. It wasn’t about being
unobtrusive and not using a flash. Once I had permission to
be there, I could just be there with whatever I needed.
What
is the dialectic between what is extreme, like a stripper,
and what is mainstream – a teenager baring her midriff,
wearing a thong? Is the margin becoming narrower?
I
started Girl Culture very intuitively. I was just
seeing different pictures and different projects that I worked
on, and starting to put them together around the idea of performance
and exhibitionism, and the way that a girl, at a certain age,
the outside starts to matter, and what other people think
starts to matter, and performance starts to matter. I was
photographing a huge cross-section of girls and women –
from schoolgirls in Chicago to strippers in Las Vegas. And
I started thinking about how icons, like the actor and the
model and the stripper and the showgirl, live in the minds
of mainstream girls.
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