Growing up skipper naked5/3/2023 ![]() ![]() Other parents are similarly concerned, and question if Mattel’s recent move goes far enough. “I’ll need Steven and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game!” In 2014, computer engineer Barbie came with a book that sent the message that girls can’t do real tech work without boys: “I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says laughing. ![]() In 2013, when the company released a Mexican Barbie who came with a passport and chihuahua, it was accused of being racist. Teen Talk Barbie, released in the early 1990s, said things such as “I love shopping!” and “Math class is tough!” (Fox TV show The Simpsons lampooned the doll in an episode about a “Talking Malibu Stacy” that Lisa loves until she pulls a string on its back to hear the doll say: “Don’t ask me - I’m just a girl!”) The truth is that even putting aside Barbie’s historically horrid figure, the doll has long been regressive in other, equally disturbing ways. Even with the new body shapes and feminist-friendly ad campaign, I’m simply not convinced it’s a healthy or progressive toy for children, especially for girls. Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair – I have a bit of Barbie baggage, to be sure. Mattel has branded the change as “the evolution of Barbie”, using language that recalls politicians who change their minds about same-sex marriage when the cultural tide turns against them, and the hashtag #TheDollEvolves, which sounds like it’d make for a better sci-fi horror movie title than an empowering call to arms. ![]() “We are excited to literally be changing the face of the brand,” Evelyn Mazzocco, senior vice-president and global general manager of Barbie, said in a release.įashion magazine Vogue lauded the move, saying: “Here’s to celebrating a new generation of children who will grow up referencing a more expansive, inclusive definition of beauty – and the healthy self-esteem that comes with it.” The new line of dolls also have an increased diversity in skin tone, eye color and hair texture. The new dolls come in “petite”, “curvy” and “tall”. Mattel has launched a new line of Barbie dolls, “Fashionistas”, alongside its “original”-bodied Barbie (a doll so skinny that her proportions on a real woman would make digestion, walking and, well, living all but impossible). Now, more than 50 years after she first appeared on toy store shelves, Barbie appears to have found a way to redeem herself in the eyes of young girls. (The kind that’s shrugged off when seen in boys.) Even so, Barbie is a worldwide symbol of unrealistic beauty standards, and so perhaps it makes sense that young girls would have, let’s say, “complicated” feelings about her. It may be that the ire my sister and I took out on poor, blonde Barbie was some sort of pre-adolescent rage against the sexist machine – rejecting the tools of our oppressor! – but it’s more likely because destroying dolls is simply unremarkable, age-appropriate play. In a 2005 study that looked at the way children play, researchers from the University of Bath found that girls frequently “maimed and decapitated” their Barbies, a practice they attributed to a rejection of both childhood and the symbol of femininity that the doll represents. Apparently, the disdain directed at Barbie is fairly commonplace.
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