This is a photo of two posters from the I’m a Girl Campaign
On Tuesday, November 12th, I and the other five members of the Women in the media, and women’s self-esteem group met and had an interview with Dennis Ahlgrim. Dennis was the designer of the I’m a Girl Campaign happening all around the city. He was very friendly, and knew Sophia well, so that made the interview much more relaxed and easy-going. He was able to give us some really interesting facts, and knew the answers for almost all of our questions. One thing I though was interesting was how the models were chosen. Dennis said the girls were “real girls” between the ages of seven and twelve. The people working on the campaign wanted the girls to be of different ethnicities and age ranges, but anyone who wanted to be a model for the campaign, and applied, was used. One other thing that struck me about how the girls were picked was they didn’t want anyone that was too pretty, and looked too perfect. It makes sense to not want that, because a girl won’t necessarily begin to feel more self esteem if there is a picture of a “perfect” girl on a poster trying to help with that. However, they might have run into a problem if someone who was naturally pretty wanted to be a model, but no one who was extremely pretty applied so there were no issues there.
This is another one of the posters
Dennis’s opinions on how girls are portrayed are also very strong, and it is wonderful that he had a chance to work on something he was very passionate about. He believes that the way women in the media are portrayed today is absolutely horrific. He hates how much women are treated as objects, and completely sexualized. He also greatly dislikes how the message that comes out of these ads or other types of media is to look “perfect”, which makes girls feel even more uncomfortable with their bodies in a place where they are already under pressure. Dennis said the main point the posters are trying to convey is that everyone is beautiful on the outside, and inside. They want girls to see a poster, and imagine themselves as if they were the girl modeling for the poster, showing that not just people in the media are beautiful, but everyone. He described how one girl who was modeling had self esteem issues herself, but after her mom and Samantha Levine talked to her, and convinced her to do the photo shoot, she came away feeling much, much better about herself and her body than she had when she first walked in. This is the idea that everyone working on the campaign was trying to put effort into, and I think they did a great job at succeeding in that. Dennis could not answer some of our questions because he wasn’t in charge of the whole project, so our next step is to talk to Samantha Levine, the manager of the project to find out more information, and see if there is anything we can to do help. Finally, this interview with Dennis really impacted me because while we had gone to see a high school assembly for our first fieldwork, actually getting to talk with someone who worked for the cause was extraordinary. Dennis’s information really helped me get a sense of what direction we should move in next, and made me even more excited for our next fieldwork.
This is another one of the posters
