Crossposted at Jezebel.
Sarah Barnes, who blogs at Uplift, expressed surprise at seeing the ad below in Grazia magazine:
She found herself surprised, she explains, because it took a minute for it to sink in that the dolls weren’t real people…
She explains:
In a time when everything is photoshopped to such disastrous levels, there really isn’t that much difference between a Ralph Lauren advert using a real model and an ASOS ad using Barbies. When fashion just has to be seen on ‘perfect’ women, we are becoming used to seeing a Barbie-like cookie cutter version of what women look like in our magazines.
So, this is why I screamed. Because, for a second there, I thought the Barbies were real women.
Do they freak you out a bit?
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
