Fast Foward

The preface for fast forward gave the reader a quick glance of the work put into creating Fast Forward by Lauren Greenfield, this book is a look at the lives of teenagers growing up in L.A. and how the media, Hollywood in particular, creates a demand for children to mature earlier.

I found her work to be very interesting and it gave me a better idea of what to look for when taking my own photos. I’ve decided to take most of my photos tomorrow while shopping and exploring in Boston, Ma. Boston is a city full of diversity, life, and tradition. I am hoping that like Lauren Greenfield I can find interesting subjects who will let me take a snapshot of their lives for this project. Until I take my photos I do not know exactly what story I will be looking to tell. Greenfield tells the story of lost (or stolen) youth in the city of dreams. How the youth is trying to grow up and take on the world and how their need to grow up intertwines with their need to "be cool" and fit the mold presented by the media of what a teenager should be. Many of Lauren Greenfield’s subjects talk about being a "baller" or at least portraying one. One of her subjects saved his money for two years just to show up in a limo at prom saying, "I spent close to 600 dollars. I worked hard to get the money so that prom would be at least halfway decent for me; we are a very low- income family. It took me about two years to raise that much for prom." Why is it that living the life has become buying the life? Our society today is to wrapped up in consuming to become another person, a better person, a cooler person, that they don’t realize that someone is looking at them and trying to be like them, just like they look at another and try to copy the lifestyle modeled for them. Our society is to busy buying our identities that we don’t realize that we already have an identity without having to spend money to purchase it. We are all born with our own unique personality, but like Greenfield explains, it is often not seen as cool enough. To be cool is to have money, beauty, and power. Xavier a 17 yr old subject of Greenfield’s explained I don’t know what is cooler, to drive the fifty- thousand- dollar car or to act like your unfazed by the person who drives it-- to act like it doesn’t affect you."

I believe that Greenfield would agree with Raby's pleasurable consumption discourse. Greenfields work looks closely at how consumption has become the main way to portray the individual. Greenfield worked with one subject who was undergoing a rhinoplasty. The female described how she felt like she was not good enough before and was insecure about her nose. After the rhinoplasty she felt more comfortable meeting new people and presenting her new self. The "self" is what's inside and is not our outer appearance. By shifting the target audience to adolescence the media has created a market for buying a better you. People no longer know how to express themselves without purchasing a product to do so.