Video by Lauren Greenfield ’83 Wins Multiple CLIO Awards

Lauren Greenfield ’83 is the director behind the video “Like a Girl,” which has become a sensation since it premiered in June. The short recently garnered seven CLIO Awards—which honor advertising, design, digital and communications—including a Grand Clio, and has racked up 75 million downloads and 4.4 billion impressions so far.

 

Commissioned by the company Always, the video features Lauren behind the camera, asking people to mime actions, such as running, throwing and fighting, “like a girl.” The subjects tend to flail about aimlessly, goofy smiles on their faces; they interpret “like a girl” to mean weakness, ineffectiveness. In an article she wrote for the Telegraph, Lauren explains, “I think the power of the ‘Like a Girl’ video—the reason people have connected to it—lies in the fact that we start out laughing but end up crying. The imitations are funny and silly and culturally recognizable, and yet the true meaning has deep implications for at least half of our world.”

 

The video has struck a chord with viewers, confronting the harm that demeaning gender-based language can have on the confidence of young women and girls. Lauren, who is the parent of two Crossroads students, has been heartened by the conversation taking place about what performing ‘like a girl’ really means—if anything at all. Notes Lauren, “The world is reclaiming those words, and changing their meaning to show that doing something ‘like a girl’ cannot be categorized or defined in any way.”

 

Lauren is the author of three monographs, including “Girl Culture,” a best-selling photography book that documents the self-esteem crisis among women in the U.S. She won best director at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her documentary “The Queen of Versailles.” Lauren’s next major project is a 2015 solo show at the Annenberg Space for Photography entitled “WEALTH: The Influence of Affluence.”