In Sharon Mazzarella's essay, she discusses how teenage girl magazines depict the "perfect prom." She says that Seventeen magazine focuses on beauty and fashion. Messages about nutrition and fitness seem to focus on weight loss and physical attractiveness. The predominant message of Seventeen, Young Miss, and Sassy is on self-improvement as defined by fashion dressing and physical beautification. These magazines also seem to give conflicting messages in which the only power available to young women is achieved through seduction, beauty, and fashion. They also inform girls of the need to be beautiful and sexually attractive to males, but at the same time warn them to be sexually responsible. In this essay, Mazzarella focuses mainly on the way in which these magazines market and sell one particular component of female teen culture- the high school prom. She specifically depicts how the "perfect" prom is defined by the articles and advertisements in these magazines, the ingredients presented as necessary to the creation of such perfection, and she analyzes the underlying discourses about gender roles, dating, leisure, and consumption presented to young women via these magazines. First girls are told that prom night should be perfect and the ways in which to make it perfect, then the magazines tell the girls to "remember the prom doesn't have to be perfect." I think this is interesting because my girlfriends who read these magazines were the girls who thought that prom had to be perfect; they would get their hair done, buy fancy dresses, shoes, and accessories. I didn't read these magazines on a regular basis, and prom was of little importance to me (and I went to five). Something the magazines would talk about was how mortifying it would be if someone wore the "same dress." Oh my goodness! I bought one formal, and it was cheap. I borrowed my dresses because no one would ...