Barbie: Arge Pircy's Baebie Dol

Barbie's got a bad reputation. All that is really focused on is her looks. This defeats the purpose of the entire concept of the doll herself, and it goes to show just how women (even of the rubber/plastic type) are portrayed in the public eye. Actions figures aren’t exactly only looked at for their rock-hard abs and meaty arms, but seen for their strength, courage, and all around manliness. This brings us to a double standard, but that’s another essay topic in

Since it was first introduced to U.S. toy markets back in 1959 (Abramson 2009), the commercially successful Barbie doll has historically solidified its legacy in American consumer culture. It is every little girl’s rite of passage to be old enough to finally receive a Barbie. Although the gifting of a Barbie can be an exciting moment for children, its effects on their body images can leave lasting detrimental damage to their self-esteem. These damages often manifest themselves in multidimensional ways, with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, being highly common examples. It may seem incredulous one doll can engender so much turmoil in a child’s life, but several developmental psychologists have demonstrated that the unrealistic body expectations espoused by Barbie have permanent implications for young girls’ developmental trajectories.

Barbie is an important role model of girls at a young age. “Handler got the idea for Barbie after noticing her daughter, Barbara, dressing adult paper dolls in cutout clothing.” [Englert] “Ruth immediately recognized that experimenting with the future from a safe distance though pretend play was an important part of growing up.” [History -Barbie] Recently, Barbie has announced that Barbie will be curvier, different hair length and/or color, different skin tones, etc. to have girls experiment the doll as themselves with decision making, problem solving, and more. “...Barbie continues to find new ways to inspire and encourage the next generation of girls.” [History -Barbie]

Young Girls look up to many people as role models, one role model that plays an immense part in their lives is Barbie. Barbie is defined as being pretty, beautiful, and even perfect. But is she really that wonderful as she seems? Her body shape is completely inaccurate representation of the female body and people get easily influenced by these unrealistic standards. If no one steps up to help young girls realize that Barbie is not perfect then they will have dissatisfaction with themselves forever. Body dissatisfaction is becoming more and more popular and one reason is that Barbie presents an unrealistic body image that affects young girls and their idea of a perfect life.

Seeing the perfect Barbie figure brings a deeper realization to how far someone may be from this ideal look, causing many health issues on the interior as well. In the article “Epidemic of Body Hatred” written by the site Dying to Be Barbie, writes about the stress and anxiety that even children face to avoid being “overweight” and how this leads to many eating disorders and unhealthy children. Their research showed that after having their own Barbie and being apart of an image-based society that “hundreds of more children, aged 5 to 9, have undergone treatment for their eating disorders” (Dying to Be Barbie). The image that Barbie portrays influences children to the extreme and affects them most when they are at an age where they are in need of guidance to be happy with who they are. Instead of being happy with themselves, they look at what society and Barbie pushes them to be.

In 1959 Mattel Toy releases a womanized figure called Barbie, a doll with unrealistic body proportions. Little girls all over the world idolized this toy, wanting to grow up just like Barbie. The blond hair, skinny waist and blue eyes toy. Parents were thrilled by this toy but little did they know it created a big self-esteem drop and brought their child’s insecurities up.

Blonde hair. Bright blue eyes. Tall, lean, and draped in garish pinks. It’s the plastic cynosure herself, Barbara Millicent Roberts, but most know her as Barbie. Her bright pink ensemble, indefatigable girl power attitude, and widening range of ethnicities and body types underscores Mattel as a progressive company that aims to allow tweens and teenagers to express their dreams and discover their identity through play.

From her height, weight, and perfect figure, she seems to be able to do it all. With such a large amount of young girls in possession of a Barbie doll, many have questioned the effects it has on them and the way Barbie causes them to view themselves. For the most part, it has been decided that Barbie impacts

Papalia, Sally Wendkos Olds, Ruth Feldman, it talks about how about 99% of children aged 5 ½-10 own at least one Barbie. When they were asked a series of questions they found that up until the age of 7, little girls were looking up to Barbie and were unhappy with their current body weight. The quote from this article “she’s the perfect person..that everyone wants to be like” (346), was said by a little girl. During this age range children are very sensitive in how they and others view themselves. With exposing them to Barbie and other thin models that fit the “beauty glove”, it is setting them up to have a negative body image in the future. This can lead them to stop eating which can develop into an eating disorder. On the other side, many people would be considered overweight, by the media’s standards, if you do not have a flat belly and toned legs you are overweight. Sometimes being overweight has nothing to do with how much food is consumed, but a person’s genetics. There are medicines, diseases, and other factors as to why someone would be overweight. Society has very foggy views of thin and

An Icon is familiar to people’s everyday life for it represents something that they believe in, something that is influential to mold the ways in which we view our world. In 1959, Barbie was created; today Barbie creates the way we look at ourselves and society. Up to date, 1 billion Barbie dolls have been sold. The number still being more than the population of the United States of America, Brazil and Pakistan combined. The Barbie brand is worth 2 million dollars (and counting) which is a little ahead of the luxury brand Armani.

Society values looks over health which is contributing to a rise in America’s obesity. Source "E" focal point was on the popularity of Barbie and how iconic she is. Society expects people to look like Barbie which could put people at a serious health risk. People alter their bodies so they can become the "ideal Barbie" when it isn't good for their health. Basically, if you don’t have a Barbie body the society views you as not pretty.

Barbie for years has been presented as beautiful and thin as has the princess dolls. As expressed by Coyne, “the typical princess is portrayed as young and attractive with large eyes, small nose and chin, moderately large breasts, prominent cheekbones, lustrous hair, and good muscle tone and skin complexion”. This encourages girls to one day want to be like these dolls, not putting into perspective that this image presented by society is false. At an early age, children are naïve to what is real and what is fake, therefore, to them these Barbie’s and princess dolls seem like goddesses and hope for one day to become like them. As presented by Coyne, young girls begin picking up the idea that “attractiveness is a necessary component of female identity”. A study conducted by Dohnt and Tiggemann, “suggests that early exposure of the thin ideal in media at around the age of 5 years old predicts appearance-related concerns in the future. These young girls begin to express fear of getting fat, begin with body esteem issues, and is associated with disordered eating in early elementary aged children. These insecurities haunt these young girls into grade school and adult

It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that critics began “comparing Barbie to a Playboy Bunny and calling her a corrupter of youth” (”Bad Girl” 3). One woman commented, “She’s an absurd representation of what a woman should be” (“Bad Girl” 3)-–and that’s exactly what many others thought she was, too. With such impossible real-life measurements of 5’9” tall, 36”-18”-33” bust, waist, and hip (Benstock and Ferriss 35), it’s easy to see why mothers across the country banned the doll from their homes and refused to let their impressionable young daughters be influenced by a piece of painted plastic (Bestock and Ferriss 35). Since dolls have often been responsible for teaching children what society deems important or beautiful, many concerned parents wondered why Mattel did not design a doll that taught more valuable lessons than dressing pretty and being dangerously skinny (Edut 19)? Who said a runway model was best suited for teaching a child what is beautiful anyway? “According to a Mattel spokesperson, a Kate Moss figure is better suited for today’s fashions” (Edut 19), and that is one reason why Barbie must be so disproportional. Actually, another reason for Barbie’s anorexic figure can be traced back long before Kate Moss and the fashion runway. Barbie was

Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March of 1959. This brand of doll is representing of a slim, shapely young woman,

When Barbie was invented in 1959, Mattel, the company who created her, focused on the idealised small waist, long legs, fashionable clothing, and overall beauty to fit the current era’s style in order to sell the product. The dolls continued to change with time and fashion, but one thing has stayed the same: the unrealistic body shape. If the doll existed as a real person, Barbie would be about 5ft 9in tall, weigh 110 lbs, and would have a BMI of 16.24, which fits the weight criteria for anorexia (Mcqueeney). Young girls feel as though they need to look like the doll and do not realise how unrealistic it is. Some became angry at the dolls for being so unrealistically pretty, forcing them to believe that they themselves aren’t pretty enough until they look like the doll. Some girls took it to heart and have gone so far as to get plastic surgery to have the ideal body shape. A woman named Valeria Lukyanova has been renamed the human barbie because of her unrealistic looks. Jauregui quotes Valeria exclaiming "Everyone wants a slim figure. Everyone gets breasts done. Everyone fixes up their face if it's not ideal, you know? Everyone strives for the golden mean. It's global ...". The new dolls are a way for Barbie to redeem herself and to prevent children from feeling the need to change themselves in the