Fuck it, I'll put you assknockers in my annotated bibliography. BARBIE TALK!

[Elder Iptuous]

i can't see that happening. i'd be impressed if it became de rigueur for a night out on the town.

i'd seen some pics of people (girls and boys) dressed and made up like BJDs.  creepy but interesting.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The OTHER side of this coin is that there are apparently millions of people, in America at least, who have absolutely no concern for how they look. See: Wal-Mart, etc.

I may be a reincarnated douchebag from the Victorian era, but I am seriously annoyed by people who will go out in public dirty, stinky, wearing sweatpants and stained shirts, just completely unaware or unconcerned with their personal presentation. Men and women. FFS. Have some fucking class. Wear a god damn suit. Put on a belt. How about a hat? Stop grazing on grease pellets 24 hours a day like some kind of god damned champion hog working up for a weight contest.

So, back on topic: Barbie dolls might contribute to body image and self-esteem problems, but god dammit we can't just completely ignore body image. Some things just aren't attractive, and we shouldn't pretend it's OK to be ugly and filthy, either.

</2 cents>

[Salty]

Yeah, we need a devil's advocate.

Kay. Barbie plays as much a role for developing little snooty, high-class fashionistas obsessed about their weight and figure as the game Operation plays on incompetent doctors.

1. It's just a doll. It may be an idealized doll of astoundingly stupid proportions, but it's still just a doll. Boys that play with GI Joe don't all become obsessed with guns that shoot plastic, flame shaped projectiles. Little girls playing with blocks don't all become construction workers. Kids take away what they put in, and they put in what you give them. If you give them a piece of plastic shaped into painful social conditioning (debatable to begin with) and fail to instruct them on how the world actually work you can't damn well blame the plastic. That's the parent's deal.

2. No one is forcing you to be purchase barbie dolls for your children, America. You could purchase any damn doll you want, this is America not N. Korea where every doll is Kim Jung Ill RIP. Just because Americans are stupid doesn't mean it's a toys company's fault that women have a collective unhealthy view of their bodies.

BAM.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

i think you gotta be fairly slim to begin with for them to work properly based on my experience at the ren faires... 

They work ok for people who are a little bit chubby. Think Mae West, or actual Victorians. The ideal then was big butt, big legs, just nip your waist in to, like, 18". 

This one doesn't seem to be corseted, but you get the idea.


Big people, no. But rennies are almost always an example of what not to do. 

[Elder Iptuous]

she looks good. (although i'd change the hair)

[East Coast Hustle]

bratz dolls are going to establish the notion that hydrocephalic women are hawt.
then we'll see the true horrors of plastic surgery.

Somebody should probably do a Rule 34 check on this.

[Elder Iptuous]

:surprisingly absent cringe emote:

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

she looks good. (although i'd change the hair)

She does, actually. She's not obese, she's hourglass. She looks healthy.

That's something else that irks me, there only seems to be room for ONE ideal at any given time. From this to flappers to pin-ups to Twiggy to toned to skinny-with-silicone-tits, but there's only ever one that everybody's expected to try to conform to.

[Elder Iptuous]

according to who?
if one is trying to impress fashion gurus, perhaps it's one, but if you're trying to impress a mate then there's a butt for every seat, as my used car salesman uncle used to say...
i mean, i know what you're saying, but i don't know how much stock to put in it.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

according to who?
if one is trying to impress fashion gurus, perhaps it's one, but if you're trying to impress a mate then there's a butt for every seat, as my used car salesman uncle used to say...
i mean, i know what you're saying, but i don't know how much stock to put in it.

Guys are easy and they tend to like variety anyway. 

I was thinking more in terms of how you look in your clothes, things like that. Waistlines rise and fall, etc.

[Freeky]

Yeah, we need a devil's advocate.

Kay. Barbie plays as much a role for developing little snooty, high-class fashionistas obsessed about their weight and figure as the game Operation plays on incompetent doctors.

1. It's just a doll. It may be an idealized doll of astoundingly stupid proportions, but it's still just a doll. Boys that play with GI Joe don't all become obsessed with guns that shoot plastic, flame shaped projectiles. Little girls playing with blocks don't all become construction workers. Kids take away what they put in, and they put in what you give them. If you give them a piece of plastic shaped into painful social conditioning (debatable to begin with) and fail to instruct them on how the world actually work you can't damn well blame the plastic. That's the parent's deal.

2. No one is forcing you to be purchase barbie dolls for your children, America. You could purchase any damn doll you want, this is America not N. Korea where every doll is Kim Jung Ill RIP. Just because Americans are stupid doesn't mean it's a toys company's fault that women have a collective unhealthy view of their bodies.

BAM.

Either you are very good at that, or that's your real opinion, in which case my entire seven page essay has been killed even before I've written it. 

[Salty]

Yeah, we need a devil's advocate.

Kay. Barbie plays as much a role for developing little snooty, high-class fashionistas obsessed about their weight and figure as the game Operation plays on incompetent doctors.

1. It's just a doll. It may be an idealized doll of astoundingly stupid proportions, but it's still just a doll. Boys that play with GI Joe don't all become obsessed with guns that shoot plastic, flame shaped projectiles. Little girls playing with blocks don't all become construction workers. Kids take away what they put in, and they put in what you give them. If you give them a piece of plastic shaped into painful social conditioning (debatable to begin with) and fail to instruct them on how the world actually work you can't damn well blame the plastic. That's the parent's deal.

2. No one is forcing you to be purchase barbie dolls for your children, America. You could purchase any damn doll you want, this is America not N. Korea where every doll is Kim Jung Ill RIP. Just because Americans are stupid doesn't mean it's a toys company's fault that women have a collective unhealthy view of their bodies.

BAM.

Either you are very good at that, or that's your real opinion, in which case my entire seven page essay has been killed even before I've written it. 

It's a little bit of both. I don't think of it in absolutes. My sister played with barbie and she's got a huge ass, belches much, much louder than I can, and doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks. But the important thing is I can argue those points for a very long time. The more important thing is that it doesn't kill your essay. You just have to frame it to counter these points from the beginning.

[Freeky]

Yeah, we need a devil's advocate.

Kay. Barbie plays as much a role for developing little snooty, high-class fashionistas obsessed about their weight and figure as the game Operation plays on incompetent doctors.

1. It's just a doll. It may be an idealized doll of astoundingly stupid proportions, but it's still just a doll. Boys that play with GI Joe don't all become obsessed with guns that shoot plastic, flame shaped projectiles. Little girls playing with blocks don't all become construction workers. Kids take away what they put in, and they put in what you give them. If you give them a piece of plastic shaped into painful social conditioning (debatable to begin with) and fail to instruct them on how the world actually work you can't damn well blame the plastic. That's the parent's deal.

2. No one is forcing you to be purchase barbie dolls for your children, America. You could purchase any damn doll you want, this is America not N. Korea where every doll is Kim Jung Ill RIP. Just because Americans are stupid doesn't mean it's a toys company's fault that women have a collective unhealthy view of their bodies.

BAM.

Either you are very good at that, or that's your real opinion, in which case my entire seven page essay has been killed even before I've written it. 

It's a little bit of both. I don't think of it in absolutes. My sister played with barbie and she's got a huge ass, belches much, much louder than I can, and doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks. But the important thing is I can argue those points for a very long time. The more important thing is that it doesn't kill your essay. You just have to frame it to counter these points from the beginning.

It took me a few seconds to rebut your arguments, but I can do it.  I was already arguing that barbie dolls are only a minor component of that, and are more a reinforcement of subliminal messages and subtext of media than an end-all be-all source of all this horrible shit.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

2. No one is forcing you to be purchase barbie dolls for your children, America. You could purchase any damn doll you want, this is America not N. Korea where every doll is Kim Jung Ill RIP. Just because Americans are stupid doesn't mean it's a toys company's fault that women have a collective unhealthy view of their bodies.

BAM.

When my daughter was very small, she wanted barbies.  I thought about it and decided that her having a few common frames of reference with her peers outweighed the negatives involved.  I spent years encouraging her to think and speak for herself, and things like barbie fell by the wayside by age 8 or so.  And not just the dolls, which go away eventually anyway, but the whole mindset.  She still wears a uniform (you really can't NOT at 16), but at least her uniform is "nonconformity for its own sake", which should, I expect, evolve into "I don't need any particular uniform".

Nobody is forcing anybody to purchase barbies, but barbie is so metasticized that the only way to totally keep the barbie thing out is to refuse your kids no matter what and actively discourage everybody you know from giving barbies as gifts. Then barbie is FORBIDDENFORBIDDENFORBIDDEN and your kid grows up hating you because you're a fanatic who made her feel like a freak since ALL HER FRIENDS HAD BARBIES and she rebels for the rest of her life by emulating stupid barbie shit with a vengeance.

I think TGRR handled it the right way. Just get the kid a damn barbie and hope some of the stuff you told them sinks in.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

She's been glamorous
She's been glorious
She's told us that math is hard.
Now, for the first time ever

Its Overweight Barbie!
That's right Overweight Barbie!

She's spent too long in front of her Barbie TV!
and too much time in that Barbie Kitchen!

Now take Overweight Barbie to the local greasy spoon with Beerbelly Ken!

With the all new "Split the Bill" accessories!

She's too big for her Barbie Car, so buy the new Barbie Minivan!

(Beerbelly Ken, Stretch Pants and Crane sold seperately.)