Glam Girlz

Glam Girlz Documentary

2010-01-03T18:52:00.000-06:00

TJ Maxx/ Marshall's Commercial

2009-09-29T07:23:00.005-05:00

TJ Maxx and Marshall's stores have teamed up for a new advertising campaign where 3 female twenty something shoppers organize a shopping intervention on a friend who is compulsively buying over priced clothes. This is a perfect example of the Glam Girlz motto: "It's not what you wear, it's who you are!" Advertisers have for many years taken us down the road of you must where top brands to be somebody. And most American women have bought in to it and now present it to their daughters. It's so cheesy people. There is no way the average American girl can keep up with this type of consumption and even if they are on daddy's dime, they will eventually deal with their consumption values once the real job begins.

The last line in the Maxx/Marshall commercial is "YOU CAN BE SMART AND BEAUTIFUL!"
Amen sister. You were born with a fantastic computer that even Microsoft can't formulate. It's called your brain - use it! Enjoy your thoughts and keep the advertisers at a distance. They are trying to out think you and for the last 15 years or so have been doing a good job! Thank you TJ Maxx and Marshall's for pointing this out to us!

Ladies and girls-enjoy your minds- the way they think and formulate cognitive moments. Your sentence structures and ideas are much more fashionable than your clothes. If you're hanging with girls who are more interested in their Louis Vuitton wear than authentic friendships, then maybe it's time to find new friends. You were born with your own natural beauty, once you identify it, you'll be able to appreciate it in your friends. Until then, "I just love your purse", maybe as far as your IQ will take you.

Mall confusion

2009-02-19T09:14:00.003-06:00

When I was 13, the first mall was built in our community. Upon our visit, I browsed the overwhelming window displays and stopped to gaze upon a pair of high heel shoes. My grandmother just rolled her eyes and kept walking.

Today's teens have been practicing the mall's popularity maze since babyhood. Mothers are almost expected to buy heels for their daughters at younger ages as elementary girls dress to match their high school sisters. Gen Y has not known a day on the planet that did not include the mall concept.

School halls spotlight a daily fashion show where brand names dominate walking billboards.
Our distorted fashion sense leaves us with a mismatched reality. So many of our young girls miss their childhood creativity confused about their roles in an ever increasing complicated universe.

Has the concentration of personal style symbols jumbled the communication stimuli of our inner synapses to the point where we no longer realize the camouflage?

A Mall's Responsibility

2009-02-12T08:52:00.004-06:00

If casinos advertise for gambling problems, should malls be responsible for fashion addictions?
Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty addresses our fear of non-perfection.

GCA offers a 12 step media literacy program to counter balance the constant bombardment of fashion advertisements and instant gratification we feel at purchasing and owning the next fad. How do we address and teach our teens to analyze brand power's influence on Girl Power?

Who teaches us to be ourselves?

2009-02-10T10:30:00.002-06:00

How does media's fashion craze interfere with the process of self-discovery, and how do we teach this next generation to discover their true(inner) beauty when inundated with an overwhelming number of fashion products and advertisements?

Glam Council of America is looking for inspiring stories for our theme, "It's not what you wear, it's who you are!" Tell us how a mother, teacher, or influential woman helped you to focus and spotlight the real you.

Why are brand names so important?

2009-02-06T19:13:00.003-06:00

In this current economy, it is no coincidence that we are getting a collective chance to rethink our inner glam so that we might shine a great light on our being (rather than our runway fashions). For too long now, we've relied on our couture to define us.

At Glam Council of America, I am wanting to strike a chord in women with our motto: "It's not what you wear, it's who you are!" Hopefully, women in the universe are wanting to discuss this issue, so that we can teach our teens to develop their true gifts and rethink why Prada, Gucci, and Chanel have been misguided pieces of baggage to carry.

New Direction

2009-01-30T08:36:00.005-06:00

In his inauguration speech, President Obama asked us to "pick ourselves up, dust off, and rebuild America". To comply, I am taking Glam Council of America off the shelf and renewing my commitment to its motto: "It's not what you wear, it's who you are!"

Women and girls are asked to sponsor and encourage the mothers, caretakers, and teachers of America who work diligently to guide and mentor our youth. Here, in their daily guidance, we find the backbone of America-our very existence dependent on their strength.

Glam Update

2008-10-10T14:35:00.003-05:00

New website update:

Girls, send us your stories about an incredible woman in your life who directs, teaches, and encourages you to be who you are! Our members will choose stories of women who inspire us.

If your story is chosen, Glam Council of America will send your mother, teacher, or caretaker a special gift of cosmetic/spa products that she can use to renew, pamper, and strengthen her being. Time she needs to think and create ongoing plans to develop America's youth.

Visit www.GlamCouncilofAmerica.org

High School Glam

2008-01-11T08:52:00.000-06:00

Teenage girls love their social networks-traditionally, that included riding around in daddy's car, passing one another on the road, and hanging out at the local parking lot with the other teens. Today, the use of text messaging, cell phones, and myspace.com has them connected 24/7. Is it any wonder that academics are almost a sideline for America's youth?

In the film, Two Million Minutes 2MM :: A GLOBAL EXAMINATION, the writer examines how teens use their time from 9th to 12th grade to prepare for their futures.

"Two Million Minutes until high school graduation…Two Million Minutes to build their intellectual foundation…Two Million Minutes to prepare for college and ultimately career…Two Million Minutes to go from a teenager to an adult?

How a student spends their Two Million Minutes - in class, at home studying, playing sports, working, sleeping, socializing or just goofing off -- will effect their economic prospects for the rest of their lives."

For girls, the domination of mass media on their cultural, academic, and leadership abilities has profound consequences on their educational choices. Through our media literacy program, Glam Council of America provides a positive source of information to expose the detrimental influence media is having on our daughters' intellectual pursuits. By analyzing fashion magazines, TV commercials, and Internet consumption, GCA will present our daughters with important skills to identify advertisers ulterior motives while girls develop critical thinking levels to master their own individuality and creativity.

Like Sleepiong Beauty, once girls wake up from the media spell, there's no telling what they will discover.

Beauty myth or truth?

2007-11-29T12:02:00.000-06:00

Young girls have not acquired the cognitive or language ability to formulate verbal or interpersonal identifications to oppose advertising's cultural myth that women must be young, thin, and beautiful. Girls become addicted to external approval. They get tangled in the confusion year after year through middle school and into high school without the information they need to begin the journey to authentic relationships with themselves and their peers. It affects their leadership skills, multicultural assessments, and academic pursuits.

Symptoms begin as the girls basing friendships on looks and status consumption styles rather than human qualities of personal character, values, and honorable principles. The APA’s Task Force on Advertising and Children states that young children inherently lack the cognitive capability to effectively recognize and defend against televised commercials. . .and the persuasive intent of such messages is by its very nature exploitative.

GCA presents a social network of leadership development through the performing arts for girls to access the language dialogue with one another and themselves to discuss these underlying issues. Girls daily conversation do not yet address consumerism and advertising affects on personal identity. Parents don’t know how to counter it as marketers blatantly bypass the adults’ input and target a child’s influence and access to consumer purchases.

Our program targets status vs. social conscious consumption patterns, fashion magazine content analysis of and by individuals, and use of media stereotype images on self perception and identity allowing America's daughters to think, discuss, and digest new ways of responding to their consumer saturated worlds.

Media Glam

2007-11-17T11:01:00.000-06:00

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., today's youth in America spend 900 hours per year in a classroom but 1500 hours per year watching television.

Girls channel surf with remote controls, socialize with Facebook, and text message with their cell phones. It is a glamorous life. Friendships abound, popularity soars, and teen advice is just a click a way.

Yes, they can multi task with the best of them, but are their communications expressing their full potential? What do they constantly talk about? Fashion, friends, boys, each other?

Through the performing arts, GCA has carefully designed our program to give girls new insights into their behavior of product consumption, peer interaction, and self-communication. Once the psychology of the media influence is revealed, America’ daughters will have new information to rewrite the consumer oriented scripts that presently define their female experience.

Media Literacy

2007-11-16T20:52:00.000-06:00

Dr. Susan Linn of Harvard Medical School states," Marketing executives are insinuating their brands into the fabric of [teenagers'] lives. They want--to use industry terms--'cradle to grave' brand loyalty and to 'own' children."

There are several media literacy programs online for girls. The APA 's Task Force of the Sexualization of Girls lists:
About-Face, ACT--Alliance for Children and Television, Advocates for Youth, Beacon Street Girls, Center for Media Literacy, Dads and Daughters, Girl Scouts of America, Girls Inc
Girls Inc. Media Literacy, Girls, Women, and Media Project, Hardy Girls Healthy Women, Mainely Girls, Media Awareness Network, Media Literacy Clearinghouse, medialiteracy.com
Mediawise, New Moon Magazine, See Jane/Improving Gender Portrayalsin Children’s Media,
Teen Voices/Women’s Express, Third Wave Foundation, uniquely Me!, The Girl Scouts/Dove Self-Esteem Program, Words Can Work

Most of these programs can be found online with ample links for our girls to educate themselves, but do our daughters even know they need the information? Does "girl talk" include any reference to the problem, or have we "bought into the cultural myth brought to us through the wonders of advertising, that women must be young, ingenuous, gorgeous, and innocuous?" Selling Addiction to Women

Beginning in middle school, girls become quiet aware that brands are used to determine peer status and group participation. On the first day of 7th grade, my daughter's friend did not open a book after school diving in to explore the upcoming year's exciting studies. Instead she wanted to go to the mall to get a new outfit for the next day of school.

Are we even having feelings of brand domination or are we so addicted to external values that we cannot hear the whispers in our minds?

Consumption Games

2007-11-14T08:44:00.000-06:00

America's daughters just need a little help from brand domination. They have been born into a world of fashionistas and mall mania. We are just realizing the damage to their beings. At birth, they begin their journey into fairytales and princesses as Disney rules with Cinderella, Belle, and Jasmine-all beautifully and perfectly polished. Our girls grow up just trying to fit in with the fashion obsessed culture.

What my generation called "keeping up with the Joneses" is now the "consumption games of the glamour crowd". Whether you are at school or the mall, you notice who has the most points.

We need to give our girls information to use their intellects to define their needs and wants instead of corporate America.

Glam Council of America, the US Teen Fashion Board is designed for girls to express how fashion, media, and technology influence personal development. This is a performing arts program based on the motto, "It's not what your wear, it's who you are!" Until America's daughters get new sources of info to combat the branding mastery of "cradle to grave" marketing, we can expect behavioral misconceptions to continue.

Visit our website, www.GlamCouncilofAmerica.org to learn how you can help.

What's Glam, Girls?

2007-11-11T13:29:00.000-06:00

America's daughters are born into a world of barbie dolls, movie stars, and fairytale princesses- beautifully polished models of perfection. Is it any doubt that they become just a little confused about what they are "suppose" to look like versus their daily reality?

How do they find their pop and style when corporate marketers and the media expose them to wall street's interpretation of themselves before they get a chance to express it on their own?

Parents watch their little girls enter the tween scene armed with mall mania and teen fashionista expectations. And with no referees or rules for the haves and the have nots, America's status symbols become brand acquisitions dominated by advertising agencies savvy psychological experts. See APA's article: Driving teen egos--and buying--through 'branding'

What can we do to balance the playing board for our girls? What tools and information can we give them to understand how media, technology, and fashion are influencing their personal identities? How do we protect them during those formative years so that they can express their God given individuality and find themselves before all is lost to brand domination?