unofficial blog for course ART007

Lehigh University
Art Architecture and Design
113 Research Drive
Building C
Bethlehem, PA 18015

Erica, Greenfield-Mark

Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield from her book Thin

First of all. I LOVE Lauren Greenfield. I always have. I first watched her documentary “Queen of Versailles”, and fell in love with her work, and then I watched her other film “Generation Wealth.” She documents people with compassion, not to expose them harshly, which is why her work is so loved. Lauren’d book “Thin” documents the struggle many girls had with eating disorders, drug use, and body dysmorphia in the 90s and 2000s. It was so common for girls to be obsessed with being skinny, and being skin and bone thin was the ideal beauty standard of the time. It sheds light on the problems that girls faced that forced them to feel certain ways about their bodies. It is heart wrenching to see that young girls felt so disgusted by their bodies and it is because of what the media kept pumping out to standardize what beauty should look like and promote fat phobia. The image I chose from her book is a photo of a girl with her stomach and feeding tube exposed. It shows how damaged the girl is physically that she needs a tube, and also how damaged she is mentally by having such a prevalent eating disorder. It is very sad, but Lauren documents these girls with compassion in order to shed light on what is really going on. She helps other young girls who read the book and saw the images who were also dealing with these problems.

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