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

[Juana]

I just assume Venus figurines are weird. *shrug*

it's everywhere and every little girl has to have one to have a common frame of reference

I thought this was an important point... That the mass-production nature of a conglomerate toy company twists a common culture into a global experience rather than an individualistic one... as a thought experiement, if all toys were hand-made and produced by small, local stores, the common culture would be different from place to place, region to region. There would be no universal conception of what a girl's doll "should" look like, which would make any conformity to body type possibly occur much later in life.

However, this appears to me as an "unintended consequence" on the part of Mattel.  Their goal wasn't to twist young girls' minds into a false idea of femininity... They just wanted to corner the market on doll sales (and did, for a generation or more).  As a result, there is only a single reference point for the concept of "girl's doll", and that reference point is bad signal.

Certainly.

What I found really interesting in a brow-furrowing sort of way was that Barbie's creator considers(ed?) boobs to be the paramount sign of femininity.  It's sort of a distressing emphasis on the body rather than just feeling it, and now that I'm thinking about it I can't tell if maybe she was trying to put that signal out there, or if she was already tricked into believing it, or what. 

As LMNO said, they stick out as the most obvious sign of female sex (followed, I suppose, by hip to waist), and they're pretty easy to add to a doll.

[AFK]

QUESTION: What role does Barbie play in poor self esteem and body image in women?

I think we might need someone to play devil's advocate, where the fuck is Ippie?

You rang? 


None.  Barbie is just a toy.  A young girl who has body issues because of a doll is a young girl who has parents who aren't paying attention.

[AFK]

To be very clear, I'm not suggesting kids don't ever have thoughts that "gee I want to look like Barbie", ever.  But if a Mom and/or Dad picks up on that and talks to their kids about it, most kids are going to be alright.  But I think it is too easy to just blame a toy.  There are deeper issues that get ignored when you just focus on a toy.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

"NEVER MIND HOW THE WHOLE WORLD SEES ME, MOM AND DAD TALKED TO ME AND THEY THINK I LOOK GOOD! AND THEY'RE LIKE, RILLY, RILLY OBJECTIVE ABOUT STUFF LIKE HOW THEIR KIDS LOOK!"

FFS, RWHN, that's bad. Even for you.

[AFK]

That's a different question.  I'm answering the question about the impact of Barbie on girls' self-image.  A doll, by itself should not have an impact if a kid has parents who are tuned in and talking to their kids.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm somewhere in the middle on this issue, probably leaning slightly more towards "just a doll" than "devious imprinter of unrealistic body image goals", but I think that you're vastly overlooking the realities of how much weight peer pressure carries.

[AFK]

Yes, peer pressure is an issue, the doll is not.  The doll may be a tool for peer or societal pressure, but that is the issue, the individuals wielding the tool and the lack of voices providing correction.

[Salty]

Yes, peer pressure is an issue, the doll is not.  The doll may be a tool for peer or societal pressure, but that is the issue, the individuals wielding the tool and the lack of voices providing correction.

I agree with this.

[East Coast Hustle]

Yes, peer pressure is an issue, the doll is not.  The doll may be a tool for peer or societal pressure, but that is the issue, the individuals wielding the tool and the lack of voices providing correction.

yeah, OK, I'd have to say I agree with that assessment.

[minuspace]

What some people really need is to exploit things, in order to feel any humanity at all.

[Telarus]

It's not just the doll. It's fetishizing Barbie's lifestyle (upper class frivolity is A OK!).





http://blog.netrobe.com/2011/03/barbies-closet/


Remember Ben Mack's warnings: Branding is the attempt to forge a pre-existing relationship between you ("the audience") and the target "branded good(s)" before you encounter the target "branded good(s)" in the wild (i.e. the general "marketplace"). In this case, the "branded good(s)" are actually a lifestyle/philosophy... namely that of Ayn Rand... "Fuck 'em, I've got mine. And it's so much better than yours." Barbie and related mass-consumption toys teach that mass consumption is great! So when the child encounters it "in the wild" they are faster at rationalizing why it fine (don't they "deserve the good life..."). It's very much tied to the current myth of the "American Dream" that gets recycled and resold by the corporations again and again.

[minuspace]

Thing is, I generally equate barbie dolls with sources of mana like the omphalos, given the proper contraceptive and such, all kinds of things are possible when we share our dreams together freely.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Hey, Telarus:

UNLIMITED DATA! 

Excellent point. Barbie says "BEING A PIG IS GLAMOROUS!" 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Yes, peer pressure is an issue, the doll is not.  The doll may be a tool for peer or societal pressure, but that is the issue, the individuals wielding the tool and the lack of voices providing correction.

Very well said, RWHN!

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Why is her head a brain?

And you have a point.  Nothing new there.

perhaps cavemen realized that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone.
or perhaps it is an example of extreme trepannation.
or perhaps she has ringlets for hair.

EUREKA!

I think I know.

He just wasn't any good at faces, so he made a bunch of decorative bumps.

He never practiced carving faces. Maybe he never really SAW faces.

That's why they make these: