{"id":1948,"date":"2011-01-07T19:12:07","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T00:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1948"},"modified":"2011-01-07T19:12:07","modified_gmt":"2011-01-08T00:12:07","slug":"pop-goes-feminism-should-barbie-sink-or-swim-thoughts-on-the-drown-the-dolls-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2011\/01\/07\/pop-goes-feminism-should-barbie-sink-or-swim-thoughts-on-the-drown-the-dolls-project\/","title":{"rendered":"POP GOES FEMINISM: Should Barbie Sink or Swim? (Thoughts on the \u201cDrown the Dolls\u201d Project)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor decades, Barbie has remained torpedo-titted, open-mouthed, tippy-toed and vagina-less in her cellophane coffin\u2014and, ever since I was little, she threatened me,\u201d writes Susan Jane Gilman in her article \u201cKlaus Barbie.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

This sentiment towards Barbie, one Gilman describes as \u201cheady, full-blown hatred,\u201d is familiar to many females (myself included) – but, so too, is a love of Barbie and a nostalgia for Barbie-filled memories.<\/p>\n

Feelings towards Barbie often lie along a continuum that shifts with life\u2019s passages \u2013as children, many love her, then as tween and teendom sets in, she is tossed aside, forgotten about for many years, and then later, when children come into one\u2019s life \u2013 through mothering or aunty-ing, Barbie once again enters the picture. For feminist women, the question of whether or not Barbie is a \u201csuitable\u201d plaything for the children in their lives often looms large as they navigate the toy-fueled world of early childhood.<\/p>\n

Daena Title’s \u201cDrown the Dolls,\u201d an art exhibit premiering this weekend<\/a> at the Koplin Del Reio art gallery in Culver City, California, continues the feminist tradition of analyzing Barbie, this time with an eye towards \u201cdrowning\u201d (or at least submerging) the ideals of femininity Barbie embodies. In the video below, the artist explains her fascination with Barbie as \u201cgrotesque\u201d and how her distorted reflections under water mirror the distorted messages culture sends to girls and women about feminine bodily perfection.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Title\u2019s project and the surrounding media campaign (which asks people to share their Barbie Stories in 2 to 3 minute clips at You Tube<\/a>), has garnered a lot of commentary. Much of the surrounding commentary and many of the threads have focused on the issue of drowning as perpetuating or normalizing violence against women. For example, this blogger at The Feminist Agenda<\/a><\/em> writes,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look at the images\u2026 I don’t so much get the message that the beauty standard is being drowned as that images of violence against women – especially attractive women – are both acceptable and visually appealing in our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Threads at the Ms. blog<\/a><\/em> as well as on Facebook<\/a> include many similar sentiments. While I have not seen the exhibit yet, the paintings featured in the above clip are decidedly non-violent \u2013 they do not actively \u201cdrown\u201d Barbie so much as showcase her underwater with her distorted image reflected on the water\u2019s surface \u2013 as well as often surrounded by smiling young girls. As Title indicates in her discussion of her work, it is the DISTORTED REFLECTIONS of Barbie that captivate her \u2013 as well as the way she is linked to girl\u2019s happiness and playfulness \u2013 a happiness that will be \u201cdrown\u201d as girls grow into the adult bodies Barbie\u2019s plastic body is meant to represent.<\/p>\n

The reactions thus far of \u201cdrowning\u201d as violent focus on the project\u2019s title alone, failing to take the content (and context) of the paintings into account \u2013 they are not a glorification of violence but a critique of the violence done to girls and women (and their bodies and self esteem) by what Barbie represents.<\/p>\n

To me, Title\u2019s work is in keeping with the earlier aims of the Barbie Liberation Organization<\/a><\/em> who infamously toyed with Barbie\u2019s voicebox to have her say GI Joe\u2019s line \u201cvengeance is mine\u201d rather than her original \u201cmath is hard!\u201d Her work adds to the tradition of feminist work on toys, gendering, and girls studies \u2013 a tradition that is thriving and continues to examine new and old toys alike (as here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The negative commentary regarding Title\u2019s work as perpetuating violence seems to me a knee-jerk reaction \u2013 one not based in critical reading of her work. While maybe Barbie (and the bodily perfection her grotesquely ABNORMAL body represents) SHOULD sink, Title\u2019s work \u2013 and the critiques of Barbie it is fostering, deserves to swim\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor decades, Barbie has remained torpedo-titted, open-mouthed, tippy-toed and vagina-less in her cellophane coffin\u2014and, ever since I was little, she threatened me,\u201d writes Susan Jane Gilman in her article \u201cKlaus Barbie.\u201d This sentiment towards Barbie, one Gilman describes as \u201cheady, full-blown hatred,\u201d is familiar to many females (myself included) – but, so too, is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1921,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21110],"tags":[216,21395,4374,5007,133],"class_list":["post-1948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-goes-feminism","tag-beauty","tag-girls","tag-parenting","tag-pop-culture","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}