anada307

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

Anada

 · 2 years ago

 

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     .* O . .   ..   ..O  ..    307            09 Mar 2001             ) ( ') 
   .*   O O* o o  o o  o o  o                                         (  / ) 
  *  ***O O  O O  O O  O O  O                                          \( _)| 
 *      O o  o.*..o.*..o.*..o. .net       "Sucks To Be Barbie"              * 
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       *    /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_                                          * 
      *    |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'            by X-tabai                   * 
      *   '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)                                      *mE0w*  o 
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         'Anada is cat-friendly..o*` 

        I think I am the only person in the universe who hesitates to blame 
 Barbie for the fragile self-esteem of girls around the world.  I do not 
 think that Barbie is the devil.  My parents never hinted that I should 
 strive to look like her.  I don't WANT to look like her.  I do not sit 
 around obsessing over the fact that my breasts aren't larger than my head 
 and my waist isn't the size of my neck.  I also don't expect other people to 
 look like that, and am terribly disturbed when they even come close.  Barbie 
 is not my standard of beauty, nor was she ever. 

        I had about a thousand Barbies when I was younger, plus a huge Barbie 
 house and Barbie cars and Barbie pets and a wardrobe that Imelda Marcos 
 would be jealous of.  I would spend hours just dressing and undressing my 
 Barbies until I was satisfied for that moment.  Then they would do fun 
 things like lounge around the house, maybe have a drama with Ken where they 
 confessed their undying love for each other.  One of my favorite games was 
 "Superhero Barbie," where I would dress her in her most menacing bathing 
 suit and have her beat up on Ken with her super secret ninja powers.  Yes, I 
 know this was probably not normal, but that's the point.  After all, if 
 Barbie was so busy relieving me of my uniqueness, how could I come up with 
 this stuff? 

        To me Barbie was just another toy that I could bend to my own strange 
 and selfish ends.  She had a much greater range of uses than my stuffed 
 animals or Transformers or My Little Ponies, though she did fall short of 
 Legos and cardboard boxes.  I could make up the most elaborate scenes and 
 games and whatnot with my Barbies, things that I couldn't do in real life 
 because I didn't have enough people to play with me, or enough clothes to 
 mess with, or enough space to roam in.  Barbie was my key to realizing all 
 sorts of pre-adolescent fantasies, to exercising my imagination to create 
 worlds and characters and stories to fill them.  Oh yes, that Barbie just 
 sucked the creativity right out of me.  Or so those anti-Barbie people would 
 have me think. 

        The problem is that people are ascribing immutable personality 
 characteristics to a doll.  They are creating a fictional Barbie world where 
 only looks and popularity are important, where Barbie is some sort of 
 plaything for Ken and all she does is sit around obsessing over her clothes 
 and hair.  These people lose track of the simple fact that BARBIE IS NOT A 
 PERSON.  She is a TOY.  She doesn't have her own separate Barbie plane of 
 existence.  She has no dreams, hopes, goals, ideas--nothing.  She doesn't 
 even move on her own.  She can't tell people what to do, how to think or 
 feel.  She can't brainwash anyone because she can't do anything but what the 
 person using her desires.  Barbie is just a big hunk of plastic unless some 
 little girl picks her up and gives her a life.  She can be anything that 
 girl wants, be it a doctor or a lawyer or a veterinarian, or even a lazy 
 airhead.  It is up to the person playing with her; it is not up to Barbie, 
 because Barbie can't make any independent decisions. 

        People need to stop blaming Barbie for lack of creativity and loss of 
 uniqueness and low self-esteem and all the other ills that plague girls as 
 they are growing up.  They need to stop blaming anyone at all, and instead 
 worry about how to fix the problems, if indeed there are any solutions. 

        Personally, I'll be more than happy to buy Barbies for my kids, as 
 long as they don't leave them all over the floor.  Nothing more painful than 
 a Barbie hand jabbing into your foot at three in the morning. 

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 ( o.o )  (c) Anada e'zine                            anada307  by X-tabai  o 
  > ^ <                                                                     o 
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