Creme Magazine Analysis

Creme is a New Zealand young teenage girl magazine.
Taylor Swift is on the cover. She is famous.She is known for her work in the music industry.  She is a singer/songwriter with hits such as "We are never getting back together" and "22".

The qualities she is know for are:

Innocence
Talent
Gentle
Feminine
Romantic
Role Model
Sensitive

Taylor Swift has blonde, curly hair and is slender. She as fair/ pale skin with no imperfections. She has a petite figure with dainty features.

The connotations of this are:

In my opinion, I believe that Taylor Swift's connotations reiterate her qualities.

The colours used on the cover are, pink, blue and white. I think these colours were used because it reflects the femininity of the magazine. The pink represents love, nurturing, compassion and romance. The idea is further used in later article about romantic relationships. The blue represents intelligence, self-reliance and responsible.The idea is later used in the article "How to be heard, stay calm and get what you want." White represents innocence which I think reflects the target audience, young girls. This reiterates what Taylor represents.

There are no images but their are snippets of the main articles of the magazine.


The main articles on the cover are:

-Taylor Swift in New Zealand
-How to be heard, stay calm and get what you want
-You interview The Wanted
-New Look Fashion
*Fashion under $50
*Step-by-step DIY
*Style Stake-out
& so much more!
-Exclusive: We meet The Hunger Games' Josh Hutcherson + 200 tickets&movie gear

I think this technique of putting snippets on the cover engages the reader/audience to want to buy the magazine. Also the fonts used of the cover are fun, feminine and exciting which also engages the audience.

It tells us that teenage girls are attracted to bold titles, celebrity lives and boys.

Advertisements inside the magazine include:

2 Make-up
1 Skincare
1 Hair products
4 Clothing/Jewelry
1 Technology
8 Other (Perfumes, ZM Radio, Smoking Quite line, Tampon/Pads & Hunger Games Tickets)

My thoughts are that because it is a female orientated magazine, the editors of the magazine would chose articles and advertisements that effects young women such as developing their individuality through their appearance. Feminine things such as make-up and jewelry are big parts of teenagers lives whether its to make themselves feel beautiful or taking to keep up with society's expectation of beauty.

The main focus' of the articles contained in the magazine are:

Beauty
Fashion
Friends
Boyfriends
Advice

My thoughts are that young females have different problems than young males. Advice columns particularly reference this. The purpose of advice columns are to help young women with problems with the friends, boyfriends and family. Beauty reviews and advice is particularly helpful for young girls as that are trying to learn how to do their make-up and to try different things. Friends are particularly important to those that are very involved in having close friends. Young females can learns how to make friends or to simply just treat their friends right.

The stereotypes of teenage girls in the magazine are being feminine, boy crazed, materialistic and idolize famous people.
First of all, not every girl is in love with make-up, in fact some girls think it is idiotic to plaster yourself with synthetic products. Some prefer to be natural or use a minimal amount of make-up.
Second of all, not all young teenagers are boy-crazed. Some would rather focus on their friends,family and schoolwork. Priorities of girls differ as they have different morals, ideals and are brought up differently.
Lastly, not all girls idolize famous people. Some don't believe in the idea some stand for.

There are ommission of race. There are very few people that are coloured. The most common ethic group is white. Also the prefence to straight people. The are no references to homosexuals in this magazine. This is wrong because there is little equality in the magazine because not everyone is the same and the magazine doesn't reflect this. It only really appeals to a few types of teenagers.

The celebrities offered as role models are:

Taylor Swift
The Wanted
Annah Mac
Jennifer Lawerence
Felicity Jones
Josh Hutcherson
Massad
Reece Mastin

The magazine portays feminine/girly, straight, skinny, white girls are being normal. There are very few curvy, tom-boy, curvy, coloured girl features in it. This is bias because everyone is an indiviual and this magazine only appeals to a few types of people.

This does provide a psotive message though. It empowers young women to be strong and feel beautiful. It also allows young women to follow in the footsteps of a role they find idealistic.

Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl is a television series about six main teenagers that live in New York: Dan Humphrey, Serena Van Der Woodsen, Nate Archibald, Blair Waldorf, Chuck Bass and Jenny Humphrey. Their lives are revolved around parties,sex,cheating,backstabbing and drugs and alcohol. Serena and Blair are best friends that have a lot of ups and down particularly with boyfriends and attention. Dan and Jenny are outsider as they live in Brooklyn and are not rich. They come into the main circle though. Nate and Chuck are also best friends. They relationship changes when Chuck sleeps with Nate's longtime girlfriend Nate.

This is a negative representation of teenagers because it shows teenagers as being reckless and self-involved. 

This t.v series represents teenage girls as being selfish, plotting and having low morals. The series almost shows them as being a prize, an item, something to win.

A feature that establishes this is dialogue

Carter: Hello, beautiful.
Blair: Carter, what are you doing here?
Carter: Buying you a drink 

This quote shows that Blair is a prize and he can so easily win her by buying her a drink. This is not a true representation. It shows that teenage girls purposes are to be chosen by a guy and serve no purpose other than to please the guy.

Another feature that establishes this representation is angles

This angle show that Blair and Serena are the focus of wherever they are. This shows that both girls are rather self-involved. This is a true representation because some teenage girls can become quite self involved. Such as in their love lives.

Another feature that establishes this representation is Mise-En-Scene, in particular, costumes.

The image above shows that both Blair and Serena had different ideas of fashion. This shows their individuality. Both costumes are feminine but quite revealing. This represents the idea of low morals to a small extent. This is a true representation as today, young women devalue themselves by wearing revealing clothing.

There is a difference between representation and reality because, like gossip girl, most negative representations of young females in media are exaggerated. 

The selection of storyline reinforces the stereotypes because it shows the viewers that young teenage girls are partying, drug ingesting and backstabbing. This is an exaggerated version though. The girls in the series are more focused on their social lives then their academic lives which is not the case for many teenage girls. This series only shows one type of teenage girl with warped priorities.

This is a inaccurate representation as it is far to generalized. Gossip girl only shows the selfish, social butterfly of girls but in reality, there are many other individuals. I think it is unfair to say that all girls prioritize their lives around males and popularity, though it is fairly important.

The possible effect on teenage girls could be negative. They idolize celebrities such as in gossip girl. If they believe their favourite celebrity prioritizes social over academia, teenage girls could follow in their footsteps. Society's perception of teenage girls could be warped because they could see teenage girls in Gossip Girl as being reckless and insolent and could envision teenage girls in reality in the same way.



Mean Girls

Mean Girls- Directed by Mark Waters

Mean girls is film about a young female named Cady Heron that moves from being home-schooled in Africa to the thriving and intimidating life of American high-school. She has to battle social pressure and conformity, backstabbing frenemies, popularity issues, moral issues and above all winning over Aaron her crush. 

This film is a negative representation of teenage girls as it portrays teenage girls being conniving and selfish though a generalization.

The film represents teenage girl as being self obsessed and merciless. Cady's 'friends', the Plastics in particular are sneaky, backstabbing, beautiful/perfect and superficial.

A feature that establishes this representation of teenage girls in the film is dialogue. 

"But this was Girl World."

"And in Girl World,

all the fighting had to be sneaky"

This quote is said by Cady Heron describing to a simple but correct extent, the way girls fight by backstabbing, lying and black-mailing. Though a stereotype and somewhat exaggerated  it is a true representation of how girls fight and communicate. 

Another feature that establishes this representation is lighting.

In this shot, the back lighting is focused on the girls. This shows that the girls are the center of attention at the high school. This reinforces the idea of the girls being self obsessed. The rest of  the students in the hallway are left in the not lighted areas.This shows that they are inferior and reinforces the idea of popularity and how the girls are more popular.

Another feature that establishes this representation is Mise En Scene and in particular, costume.

The costume of the girls are feminine and revealing. The prominent colour that the girls wear is pink. Some negative connotations of the colour pink is over-emotional, lack of will power and self worth. The ties in to the character development of Cady. She in particular, loses her self worth throughout the entire movie. This is shown in the scene when she wears a revealing dress which indefinitely contrasts to the costume she wore on her first day to school which was jeans and a top. The costume tie in the main representation because revealing clothes are associated with girls with low self worth and are trying to become popular.

There is a difference between reality and the representation because many films, like mean girls, don't show the different types of teenage girls. It is very generalized.

The selection of actors reinforce the stereotypes of popular girl being modelesque. The girls playing the main characters have perfect skin and slim figures. This reinforces the idea of body image and how teenage girls tend to be obsessed with the way they look. Having the plastics looking like models enforces the idea of popular girls are put on a pedestal and are idolized by other other girls that may be less popular.

It is a fair and accurate representation of teenage girl. It was however exaggerated. Its is because in real life girls are self obsessed and liars but however to an extent but their is always a certain amount of influence (especially through media) on body image.

The possible effect is most likely negative. For body image, teenage girl have a pressure to be perfect. Diseases such as depression and bulimia etc are effects of the pressure from media and other sources. Society perception and attitude of teenage girls are also negative. In today's media, teenage girls are being portrayed and self important, revealing party girls.