{"id":63017,"date":"2014-06-17T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=63017"},"modified":"2014-09-27T18:34:48","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T23:34:48","slug":"reimagining-barbie-villain-or-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/06\/17\/reimagining-barbie-villain-or-victim\/","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining Barbie: Villain or Victim?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, Barbie posed for Sports Illustrated<\/em>, triggering a round of eye-rolling\u00a0and\u00a0exasperation<\/a> among those who care about the self-esteem and overall mental health of girls and women.<\/p>\n

Barbie replied with the hashtag #unapologetic, arguing in an — I’m gonna guess, ghostwritten — essay<\/a> that posing in the\u00a0notoriously sexist swimsuit\u00a0issue was her way of proving that girls could do anything they wanted to do. \u00a0It was a bizarre appropriation of feminist logic alongside a skewering of a\u00a0feminist strawwoman that went something along the lines of “don’t hate me ’cause I’m beautiful.”<\/p>\n

Barbie is so often condemned as the problem and Mattel, perhaps tired of playing her endless defender, finally just went with: “How dare you judge her.” \u00a0It was a bold and bizarre marketing move. \u00a0The company\u00a0had her embrace her villain persona, while simultaneously shaming the feminists who judged her. \u00a0It gave us all a little bit of whiplash\u00a0and\u00a0I thought it quite obnoxious.<\/p>\n

But then I came across\u00a0Tiffany Gholar’s new illustrated book, The Doll Project<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0Gholar’s work suggests that perhaps we’ve been too quick to portray Barbie as simply a source of young women’s self-esteem issues and disordered eating. \u00a0We imagine, after all, that she gleefully flaunts\u00a0her physical perfection in the face of us lesser women. \u00a0In this way, Mattel may be onto something; it isn’t just her appearance, but her seemingly endless confidence and, yes, failure to apologize, that sets us off.<\/p>\n

But, maybe we’re wrong about Barbie?<\/p>\n

What if Barbie is just as insecure as the rest of us? \u00a0This is the possibility explored in The Doll Project<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Using a mini diet book and scale actually sold by Mattel in the 1960s, Gholar\u00a0re-imagines fashion dolls\u00a0as victims of the media imperative to be thin. \u00a0What if \u00a0Barbie is a victim, too?<\/p>\n

Excerpted with permission:<\/p>\n

\"1\"\"4\"<\/a> \"1a\"<\/a> \"5\"\"3\"<\/a>Forgive me for joining Mattel and Gholar in personifying this doll, but I enjoyed thinking through this reimagining of Barbie. It reminded me\u00a0that even those among us who are privileged to be able to conform to conventions of attractiveness are often suffering. \u00a0Sometimes even the most “perfect” of\u00a0us look in the mirror and see nothing but imperfection. \u00a0We’re all in this together.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>\u00a0and Adios Barbie<\/a>.<\/em><\/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":"

Earlier this year, Barbie posed for Sports Illustrated, triggering a round of eye-rolling\u00a0and\u00a0exasperation among those who care about the self-esteem and overall mental health of girls and women. Barbie replied with the hashtag #unapologetic, arguing in an — I’m gonna guess, ghostwritten — essay that posing in the\u00a0notoriously sexist swimsuit\u00a0issue was her way of proving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":63023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,8070,218,230,235,244,279,287,223,55,2103,2099,2096,2095,2093,2098,129,23703,283,1711],"class_list":["post-63017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-artliterature","tag-bodies","tag-cosmetic-surgery","tag-dietexercise-industry","tag-fat","tag-objectification","tag-re-touching","tag-childrenyouth","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies","tag-gender-childrenyouth","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-objectification","tag-gender-prejudicediscrimination","tag-media","tag-marketing","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-toysgames"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/43.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63017","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=63017"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64250,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63017\/revisions\/64250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}