Charlie White Makes Creepy Videos About Teenage Identity

Best known for his photography, artist Charlie White produced a completely creepy ad for Adidas in 2006 titled Pink. In this piece, a cum-like substance falls from a conche, prompting a teenaged girl’s transformation into a glittery plastic product. Presumably, her teddy bear starts this process, though to my mind the stuffed animal is simply a plot device representing the onset and passing of puberty.

On an unrelated note, the props in this short feel slightly outdated to me. What girl uses a landline and keeps a room without a computer in it these days? It seems as though these decisions must have been intentional, but I’m not sure I fully understand the rationale behind them.

White’s OMG BFF LOL, a movie exploring teenage consumption, feels similarly slightly out of date. Though the economic downturn has yet to turn off mindless purchasing, the reality that that may be a necessity seems far less abstract than it did two years ago. Either way, the script in this animation recalls the creepiness of White’s earlier film Pink. “I think it helps to want more than I can have,” says a teenager with long blonde hair. “You know what I mean? Cause I love to want.” Her friend replies, “I love to want too, but I love to have way more. ”

Originally via: Brian Alfred, Facebook

reportage
i’m not sure what to make of the ad. he has to please his client, but the cartoon leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I think it’s vaguely as out of date as his sexist notions of teenage girls. Is he projecting on past tormentors here?
anyways, ew.
reportage
i’m not sure what to make of the ad. he has to please his client, but the cartoon leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I think it’s vaguely as out of date as his sexist notions of teenage girls. Is he projecting on past tormentors here?
anyways, ew.
Karen
Mommm, when am I gonna get MY sequins???
Karen
Mommm, when am I gonna get MY sequins???
http://diezimedia.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/pink-charlie-white/ Pink- Charlie White « Diezimedia
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http://www.vimeo.com/goldencalves Chris Chambers
I was particularly moved by this video when I first viewed it. I have always read within it that the onset of sexual awareness/puberty (the conch lubricating) arises from the conversation on the phone (with a “boy”). The resulting confusion is quelled by a comfort-object from her now receding childhood (her teddy bear).
I don’t get the cartoons. They seem like near-appropriate leaders for the 1995 film Clueless.
I am interested in seeing White’s “American Minor” short, even though this looks to completely have the unfortunate potential as being very well-composed child-pornography.
http://www.vimeo.com/goldencalves Chris Chambers
I was particularly moved by this video when I first viewed it. I have always read within it that the onset of sexual awareness/puberty (the conch lubricating) arises from the conversation on the phone (with a “boy”). The resulting confusion is quelled by a comfort-object from her now receding childhood (her teddy bear).
I don’t get the cartoons. They seem like near-appropriate leaders for the 1995 film Clueless.
I am interested in seeing White’s “American Minor” short, even though this looks to completely have the unfortunate potential as being very well-composed child-pornography.
Anne-Marie
I think both of these work come under White’s pursuit of revealing teenage girls as a fiction, more socially constructed than biological. yes, this is a period where a lot of stuff changes and you start seeing things differently, but the need for consumerism to satisfy themselves has been imposed by companies who wish to profit, and has been made into a necessity in order to fit within the tribe.
I believe within ‘Pink’ the purpose has been to present a total stereotype, but a confused one (pictures of boys next to teddies). The shell is clearly a yonic symbol, and the opaque pink paint that covers her could represent sexual awakening. Oh course, at this age you feel like you have a whole lot of new knowledge, but you have no experience to reference. From my anti-capitalist viewpoint, I read the film as showing that sexuality is a powerful thing, but eventually it comes to define womanhood and socially carries more weight than other faculties. Girls feel the need to elaborately adorn themselves (the pink rhinestones) but while this is fun and exciting at first it eventually becomes a necessity, and then your downfall. The fact that she lies motionless at the end, and the teddy who has watched her transformation appears to mourn her shows this, and the retraction of the ooze from the shell is a perfect closing symbol – it gives and takes away, leaving her an object, a beautiful one, but an object all the same.
Anne-Marie
I think both of these work come under White’s pursuit of revealing teenage girls as a fiction, more socially constructed than biological. yes, this is a period where a lot of stuff changes and you start seeing things differently, but the need for consumerism to satisfy themselves has been imposed by companies who wish to profit, and has been made into a necessity in order to fit within the tribe.
I believe within ‘Pink’ the purpose has been to present a total stereotype, but a confused one (pictures of boys next to teddies). The shell is clearly a yonic symbol, and the opaque pink paint that covers her could represent sexual awakening. Oh course, at this age you feel like you have a whole lot of new knowledge, but you have no experience to reference. From my anti-capitalist viewpoint, I read the film as showing that sexuality is a powerful thing, but eventually it comes to define womanhood and socially carries more weight than other faculties. Girls feel the need to elaborately adorn themselves (the pink rhinestones) but while this is fun and exciting at first it eventually becomes a necessity, and then your downfall. The fact that she lies motionless at the end, and the teddy who has watched her transformation appears to mourn her shows this, and the retraction of the ooze from the shell is a perfect closing symbol – it gives and takes away, leaving her an object, a beautiful one, but an object all the same.