The documentary "The Girl Model" was intriguing yet sad and disappointing all at the same time. The beginning of the film captured a scene of far too many young girls putting their body images on the line just to be scrutinized and judged. Within the first five minutes of the film, it showed a sixteen year old girl standing in front of three scouts. The male scout asks her about her blemished face, and she responded that she had just started her period and the acne was only temporary. After a moment, he told the other two scouts that he felt she looked older than sixteen and none of the contractors would want her because of her mature look. This seemed absolutely absurd and disgusting to me. This first clip validated all of the "body projects" Brumberg talked about in her amazing book "The Body Project", by acknowledging the obsession girls have with their figure, their menstruation, and "acne vulgaris", which was thought to be from sexual derangement during the early twentieth century (Brumberg, 63).174
Most of this documentary was about a young thirteen year old girl from Siberia named Nadya. Her family had fallen on hard times and she somehow ended up auditioning for a modeling job. The scouts, one of which was an ex-model herself; decided that Nadya was a good candidate for Japan due to her innocent and young face and features. Although the agency "Switch Modeling" had promised her at least two jobs, she went home after her contract was up, never receiving these 2 jobs, landing her family further in debt then before. Naydya said at the end of the documentary that this experience had made her more mature and she didn't feel like a child anymore. These feelings were because of the rough transition from young girl to young adult she went through while in Japan ultimately by herself. In my opinion recruiting girls this young could not only put them into sexist roles far too early in life, but also emotionally and mentally cripple them for life. If a young girl is not mature enough to handle a situation brought to her, it can have devastating results. I know at one point during the film, Ashley, the main narrator for the film did mention that if they didn't get to the girls first, who knew where they would end up. Im not quite sure the situation in Siberia, but if they have such a problem with young girls falling into prostitution and such behaviors, why haven't they implemented more female oriented classes/activities for these young impressionable girls? Overall the film was interesting, i just didn't quite agree with what was happening within the film.
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