{"id":27609,"date":"2010-09-23T10:52:50","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T15:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=27609"},"modified":"2013-12-05T03:47:14","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T08:47:14","slug":"new-ken-and-barbie-dolls-put-the-japanese-in-the-way-back-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/09\/23\/new-ken-and-barbie-dolls-put-the-japanese-in-the-way-back-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"New Barbie Dolls Put the Japanese Back in Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a tendency in Western culture to envision white people are more modern and progressive than people of color who are seen as more traditional, even tied to ancient ways of life (see this post<\/a> and its links).\u00a0 This tendency is illustrated in Mattel’s new Japanese Ken and Barbie dolls, released this year:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When was the last time you saw a Japanese person dressed like this?\u00a0 Regarding Ken, Dolls of Color<\/a> put it:<\/p>\n

Right, because an Asian Ken can\u2019t be wearing jeans and a tshirt? Or a tuxedo if one must get fancy? An Asian Ken must be some kind of exotic fantasy and not just that cool dude next door? Right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’ll know that we respect people of color as people when we start portraying them as people instead of exotic objects or historical artifacts.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/span><\/strong> Of course, as several commenters have pointed out, these costumes aren’t at all historically accurate.\u00a0 Instead they exoticize a stereotyped notion of the traditional Japanese person.<\/p>\n

Via Racialicious<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a tendency in Western culture to envision white people are more modern and progressive than people of color who are seen as more traditional, even tied to ancient ways of life (see this post and its links).\u00a0 This tendency is illustrated in Mattel’s new Japanese Ken and Barbie dolls, released this year: When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[701,1821,1711,285,1759],"class_list":["post-27609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-modernprimitive","tag-nation-japan","tag-toysgames","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-asianspacific-islanders"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27609"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59733,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27609\/revisions\/59733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}