Girls...

... are great.

End of post.

Seriously, I had a chance to contribute in a small way to the local aspect of a photo exhibit at the Minnesota Center for Photography. Lauren Greenfield, the photographer, assembled a series of 58 images (in sumptous Cibachrome) of girls of various ages in play, socialization and work. With an emphasis on glamour, fashion and exhibitionism, the show was kind of sad. The older girls were professionals: models, strippers, dancers. The younger ones were usually shown in sort of a proto-bimbo state. The exceptions to this were a few girls with weight disorders. The saddest picture of all was a shot of three girls at a weight-loss camp. They weren’t overweight. In a side gallery were several pictures actually shot by local girls. They were everything the big show wasn’t. Girls having fun, laughing, drinking. The versimilitude of these images was a marked contrast to the “lipstick, powder and paint’ of the others. The idea of a girl culture is nebulous at best. The “girls”, when you can find the real thing, ARE great. The “Culture” is a whole ’nother thing. When girls design their own clothes, write their own stories, produce their own music, movies and television, then the idea of girl culture will be a reality. It is already happening, and with the recent advances in communication techniques (internet publishing, low-cost audio and video) the revolution will soon be here.

The day of a teen-age, female Orson Welles or Jane Austen is just around the corner.

I can hardly wait.