SuicideGirls: Beauty Redefined
by Missy Suicide
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Book Summary Information
Author: Missy SuicideEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-12-01
ISBN: 1934429163
Number of pages: 396
Publisher: AMMO Books
Book Reviews of SuicideGirls: Beauty Redefined
Book Review: "Beauty Repackaged" is a more accurate title
Summary: 2 Stars
**BOOK IN GENERAL**
I was interested to see what the Suicide Girls mystique was all about so I purchased this book. For a little over an 11"x11" sized book at almost 400 pages and just over $20.00 this is a great value. The pictures come as full page, double pages, and when cropped, the pictures are still large enough to enjoy the detail. Cropping is usually done in a very non-intrusive way. You usually don't notice. The book is sectioned off (Chapters) geographically. The first five sections of ten are U.S. After that it's sectioned into other countries.
**CRITIQUE**
The book claims that it is beauty redefined. This claim falls far short of the mark. The photography is a sub-genre of glam/erotic photography. Its focus is girls with tattoos, colored hair, piercings, and unusual haircuts. The girls are most often in glam poses. If you said that it's slightly alternative playboy style photography, then it might not appeal in the same way. My hope was that it would show women in a different light, free of the conformity to established norms and mind numbing repetitiveness so often encountered with glam/erotic photography. I was disappointed.
The book only gives only a token offering of anything other than slender white women with medium to large breasts. There are very few Asian and Black women. There are a few women that in the modeling business would be considered plus size, but not large by society. Again, this is beauty repackaged to look alternative, claimed to be redefined, but in reality adheres to conformist societal guidelines of beauty. I wouldn't fault a picture book for displaying naked women, but its tag line is Beauty Redefined. I can't help but notice as I get further from my 20's that sub-cultures such as that represented by SG usually more stringently adhere to conformity and expulsion of individuality than that they seek to rebel against. When I was younger there was a certain charm to it. Now it just seems insulting to my intelligence. I enjoyed the tattooed/pierced girl photography, just the hollow attitude and social statement leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
The book says that, "These images are our rejection of that Barbie Doll beauty ideal whose time has ended." Again, these aren't ugly women, they're Barbie Dolls with tattoos and colored hair. This doesn't in any way say to a woman that you can be beautiful if you don't fit the Barbie doll profile. It just says to a woman that if you're a Barbie Doll with the addition of tattoos, we think you're pretty. And the fact that the women are all naked with uninspired compositions with no socially relevant statement doesn't do anything to shatter the myth that women are much more than mute show pieces of meat that happen to have tattoos, piercings and colored hair. Again, I'm not faulting the images, just the hollow statement.
**PATICULARS**
Suicide Girls has been around since 2001. This book is dated as 2008. I can't help but notice far too many technical errors for a company whose main product is images. I don't think this books target demographic would notice the errors, but it's too frequent occurrence borders on amateurish. I won't fault a shot that's supposed to look like a snapshot, but when done because it is, that's sad. There are metering errors when shooting against backlit subjects. Exposures are hit and miss. It looks like too often they used a camera with a sensor/film too small to blow the shot to the size presented in the book or used a bad lenses. Often there are white balance issues, and not the artistic effect variety. The set compositions are uninspiring and lack creative thought.
**CONCLUSION**
I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. Technical errors were too abundant. Creativity was lacking in most shots. There was not much new or inspiring. What the book does right is present glamour photography with women tattooed, pierced and with unusual hair colors and haircuts. The book dimensions and price are great. It falls short as art, but is a nice picture book.
Summary of SuicideGirls: Beauty Redefined
Suicide Girls - Beauty Redefined explores the Suicide Girl phenomenon from their start in 2001 to their websites one million unique weekly visitors today. This giant tome provides a timely look at the fascinating women who created and inhabit the SG community. With an introduction by SG founder, Missy Suicide and images of hundreds of SuicideGirls world-wide, this title shines a light on a new female aesthetic - a look reminiscent of vintage Betty Page and Bunny Yeager photos, but with a decisively 21st century edge. "There's no other place in the media to see girls (like these) who are tremendously smart and beautiful in their own way" says Missy, "Everywhere you look you just see the super-thin, super-tall, bleach blonde Baywatch babe. There are a lot of people out there who want to see a different kind of beauty."Collections, Catalogues & Exhibitions Books
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