As
a tomboy growing up, Barbie seemed to represent everything I hated about girls,
distilled into one twig thin, convertible driving, career whoring package of
plastic evil.
My
two sisters on the other hand, loved to take their Southern belle Barbies for
joy rides in their matching hot pink glam convertibles, and spy on Stacy
(another non-Mattel doll) who was hooking up with Ken in the hot tub. At one
point I think they had a pregnancy scare. All while Ken secretly struggled with
his sexuality. (Seriously, what straight guy wears a hot pink ascot?)
Little
did my sisters know that a war was raging outside the walls of their idyllic
Malibu Dream Houses. Barbie’s unrealistic proportions, which in real life would
see her unable to walk with a torso too small to fit all her organs, have sparked controversy as to
the place that ‘Overweight Barbie’ occupies on the shelves of toy stores. It
wasn’t until Facebook page Plus Sized Modelling posed this idea to its
subscribers, however – generating over 50,000 likes in support - that I
suddenly became defensive of the reincarnated plastic devil.
Apparently
the solution to Barbie’s twig-thin physique is to condone obesity, an epidemic
plaguing 1 in 3 children who ‘brush her hair’, and ‘undress her everywhere’. If
a doll’s proportions are seen to have such a significant impact upon the body
image of young girls, then introducing an overweight doll will only perpetuate
unhealthy lifestyle choices, replacing one body image disorder with another.
Is
our self-confidence so fragile that we let the dimensions of a doll dictate our
happiness? Let’s fill girls of this
generation with the confidence to know they are more than how they look, rather
than filling their California Dream Houses with overweight Barbie dolls, and
hoping that the same message comes through.
If
we really want to continue this ridiculous quest for more ‘realistic’
expectations of our dolls, why not start with ‘Mid-life crisis Barbie’? Finally
divorced from Ken, Barbie sets off on a road-trip in her brand new pink
convertible (courtesy of her ex-husband’s credit card). Includes; Ken’s
house, furniture, entire salary and custody of their two children.
And
nothing could be more realistic than ‘Hung over Barbie’: All of those
‘come on Barbie lets go party’(s) have really caught up with the drunken doll as
she attends weekly Alcoholics Anonymous support meetings. Includes: yesterday’s
dress with today’s shame all over it.
It’s
time to stop analysing through the mind of an adult and start seeing through
the eyes of a child. While a posse of insecure mums complain that their third
time child-bearing body isn’t accurately represented by a nineteen-year-old
doll, their daughters recognise that just like Dora and Cinderella, Barbie is
not a real person.
What
we are unable to ignore, however, is that almost 40% of children are experiencing
body dissatisfaction, with girls as young as
five expressing a desire to be thinner. Despite parents concern, an
experimental study in Holland testing the effects of playing with thin dolls
found no support to the assumption that Barbie negatively influences body
image.
What we do know, however, is that children’s early ideas
about weight and appearance are shaped by observing, absorbing, and imitating
adult role models. No doubt that mothers who use Barbie as a scapegoat, are
also those whose children overhear them asking ‘does this dress make me look fat?’
If we
want to change the generation of body-conscious children, we need to stop forcing the blame
onto Barbie (after all, she is simply a product of our ‘Barbie world’, which
perpetuates this obsession with appearance) and start talking to girls about
things other than how they look.
Why
not begin with the first person on the moon, who wasn’t Neil Armstrong in 1969,
but astronaut Barbie four years earlier? In the 90s she broke the ‘plastic
ceiling’ by running for president before any female candidate had been
considered in the American ballot. Let’s talk about the
nascar-driving-fashion-mermaid-doctor who acts as an agent for change for
girls, rather than making her thighs bigger and hoping the same message comes
through.
Xx
