To Barbie or Not To Barbie

By
ellen stohl

 

“I got her all the Barbie dolls in wheelchairs already.” That is the last line in a New Mobility Magazine, article that discusses my life, my pregnancy and birth of my new daughter, Zoë. I read the article before it was published and absolutely loved it. I felt the author really captured me. He was honest, direct and thoughtful. I really enjoyed the entire article except the last line. I hated it. I don’t exactly know why but very time I read the article, the last line bothers me. It just doesn’t feel right but the truth is, I have bought Zoë all the Barbies in wheelchairs. So I have to ask myself, “Why am I so bothered by the whole Barbie thing?”

 

Barbie, the "Teenage Fashion Model" was introduced by Mattel Toy Corporation in 1959 at the New York Toy Fair and immediately delighted the public, it quickly sold over 351,000 units and to date has sold over 250 million units worldwide. She is a cultural icon that many believe has become the western ideal of beauty. There are woman who starve themselves and who go under the knife to try and attain Barbie’s unrealistic attributes. To be honest, I’m one of the first people to rant that the “Barbie Doll” mentality can be oppressive to woman and can skew a little girl’s idea of body image. Kelly Brownell, a Yale University psychology professor, concluded in a 1995 study that young girls notice the body shapes of icons such as Barbie and translate them into unhealthy images." It is estimated that if Barbie were human sized she would stand 5 foot 6 inches tall, weigh 110 pounds, and have a 39-inch bust, 18-inch waist and 33-inch hips. (These calculations were actually made by people on university payrolls!)

 

Ken Langley, author of “Plastic surgery will make Barbie fatter and flatter”,
takes they opposite view of Barbie and writes, “I'll share a secret with some feminists and other Barbie critics, something I saw with my own eyes: Barbie has no breasts. Barbie has no genitalia. She has lumps. Plastic humps. The doll isn't anatomically correct, and neither is Ken. Ken has one lump, a plastic mound. If measured in proportion to an adult male, Ken's hump would be 2-feet long and 4-feet wide. Ken also has big, hard muscles. How is that supposed to make us guys feel?”

 

Either way Barbie has become a social icon and if she is seen as the social ideal of womanhood than a lot of us will never make the grade. So why would I buy her for my daughter???

 

Truthfully, I never actually thought about Barbie’s physical proportions. I’ve just always liked her. She seemed pretty, fun, had a cool car and great jobs. She may have started out as a teenage fashion model but she grew up to become a doctor, musician and even an astronaut. I especially like the fact that there is a wheelchair user version, Becky. Becky started out a bit patronizing with the name, “Share a Smile Becky,” but she has grown to be “School Photographer Becky” and “Paralympic Champion”. I think its great to see this a version of this cultural icon using a wheelchair and I want my daughter to know that being in a wheelchair doesn’t mean you can’t be active and attractive. But is that why I bought her all the wheelchair using Barbie's (Becky to be exact). I don’t think so. I have also bought my daughter Professor X from the X-Men, Timmy from South Park and the mad scientist from the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. In fact if it’s a character that uses a wheelchair, I’ve bought it for my daughter. My desire is not for my daughter to become obsessed with the unrealistic proportions of a plastic doll. Instead I want to expose her to a variety of images including Barbie.

 

I think I don’t like the last line of the article because it intimates my focus is on Barbie and all that she projects. The truth is my focus is on the wheelchair. I want my daughter to know that people, even people in chairs come in many packages. I agree with Dr. Robert Schacter -- a New York psychiatrist who has studied toys and children's play, who was quoted by the AP as stating: "The fact is, the way a 5-year-old plays with a doll like that is as a vehicle for imaginative play. They create all kinds of scenarios that really don't have anything to do with her looks." It’s not the beauty I want my daughter to include in her play its wheelchairs.


Copyright Chasing the Moon Productions 2004



Want more articles?
    Casting Your Own Shadow