Cover Girl Culture: Awakening the Media Generation

Fashion-model-turned-filmmaker Nicole Clark's Cover Girl Culture examines the impact of sexualized images in television and print ads aimed at young women and girls. Teens talk about being unhappy with their looks and how much they want to be pretty and famous, while other interviewees include body image coaches, a model, a fitness instructor, and a modeling agent. Editors from Teen Vogue and ELLE voice their concerns over health and discuss their careful selection of images for their magazines (while viewers see pages featuring rail-thin mannequins and famous drug addicts). The documentary explains the economic connection between advertising and content—if teen magazines tell readers they are naturally beautiful, they aren't creating a need for the clothing, makeup, and hair products sold by their advertisers, who deliberately target young girls because companies believe those customers will remain loyal to a brand for years to come. Thus, pervasive corporate advertising fuels a preoccupation with measuring up (or down) and has a detrimental effect on society as a whole, as girls' energies are unnecessarily diverted from healthy self-development. The good news is that young women can “take back power” through smarter consumer choices, higher media literacy, and more focus on self-esteem. With an informative and clever approach that sets it apart from other films on the topic, Cover Girl Culture is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)