Being thin, pretty and sexy brings happiness. Style over substance. Young girls receive these messages hundreds of times each day. But who sets these impossible beauty standards—and how can they be changed? In this eye-opening documentary, filmmaker Nicole Clark, a former Elite International fashion model-turned champion for young girls and their self-esteem, calls for a necessary change: integrity and responsible media for our youth.

COVER GIRL CULTURE pairs images of girls and women in television and print ads with footage from the catwalks and celebrity media. Clark is given rare access to women editors from major magazines like Teen Vogue and ELLE, who provide a shocking defense of the fashion and advertising worlds. The film juxtaposes these interviews with revealing insights from models, parents, teachers, psychologists, body image experts and most importantly, the heartfelt expressions of girls themselves on how they feel about the media that surrounds them.

With an insider’s view, the film addresses issues like today’s increasingly invasive media, heightened advertising to tweens, the sexualization of girls, and how consumer culture serves to disempower young women. Not only examining how advertising and the cult of celebrity have deeply and negatively impacted teens and young women, COVER GIRL CULTURE also offers solutions for how to educate young women to think critically about the media.