History of Feminism
Related: About this forumMore on the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience
Where do you even start with Barbie? Few toys inspire such feminist gnashing of teeth as the 11 ½-inch plastic doll, with her blindingly white skin, impossible figure, and fathomless wardrobe. And now her Dreamhouse tourist attraction has descended, like the hut from the Baba Yaga story, on Berlin, where its been greeted by topless protestors waving burning crosses and men ironically dressed in pink skirts and blond wigs. Occupy Barbies Dreamhouse, they cry, condemning the doll for promoting consumerism, narcissism and unhealthy body ideals. Their placardsand torsosare scrawled with slogans like Pink stinks! I will free you from the horror house, and Life in plastic is not fantastic.
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In defense of this feminists nightmare, the houses advocates have marshaled the language of fantasy and play. I feel sorry about how some people interpret our giant pink playground, said Christoph Rahofer, of EMS Entertainment, which co-created the dreamhouse experience. Even Michael Koschitzki, a member of the demonstrating youth group affiliated to Germanys far-left party, die Linke, felt the need to hedge, Our protest is not directed towards little girls and their dreams.
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Perish the thought. I wont waste your time running through all the reasons why the Barbie dream in particular is so perversethe layers of racism, materialism, vanity, body insecurity, and passivity billowing around it like so much gauzebut I would like to challenge the idea that anyone today can get away with anything simply by invoking that hallowed word: dream. We cannot reject Barbies ridiculous mansion, we infer, because doing so would trample on little girls dreams. It would poison their play. The defense of the Dreamhouse is built into its name, as if any attempt to speak out against it would necessarily crush the tender shoots of youthful imagination under a big slab of adult agenda.
Look, I get the gossamer loveliness of dreams, the bigness of them. I swoon for Keats and Gatsby and am getting weepy just thinking about the gorgeous rebuttals that will probably appear in this posts comment section: In Praise of Dreaming, Dreams Make Us Human, etc. But despite what they tell you, a dream is not the same as a plan or a vision or an aspiration. It is the ultimate in passivity, something visited upon you while you are asleep. Or its what a princess does as she gazes out the window and waits for her happy ending. Do we need to telegraph to girls that the be-all and end-all of their young lives is spinning out beautiful mental pictures that have no basis in reality? Because, ultimately, thats where the dreaming defense gets its juice: Its a way of assuring critics, this isnt real, its nothing to worry about, its just a game. (Baking a digital cupcake on a touch screen in the Dreamhouse kitchen wont confine you to stand by an oven for the rest of your life, insists Rahofer.) But if Barbies proportions, celebrity and overall way of being arent attainable, then why dangle them in front of girls faces in the first place? Why invite tourists into the glowing pink rooms with the endless shoes and the runways and the sugary treats that never get eaten? (This is a rhetorical question: The answer is $29 tickets and a gigantic gift shop.)
Link to article
Warpy
(110,913 posts)Touring that thing would be like touring somebody's GI tract, ugh! I really think they should have thought it through a little more, using pink as an accent color prevents rapid overdose and subsequent projectile vomiting.
I was a bit too old for dolls when Barbie came out and I thought she was grotesque, from her monster tits to her cramped feet, permanently deformed from spike heels. The years have not altered nor mellowed my opinion.
However, I can think of better things for Occupy to protest. There are too many little girls out there who love everything Barbie and doting parents who buy anything pink.
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)The thing that fascinates me about Barbie is that she has been so incredibly successful. Dolls have always been around but while others come and go, Barbie somehow always rises from the ashes.
It's tough to buy that it's simply brilliant marketing keeping Barbie out there with all the clubs and collectors just fools attracted to nothing. It's been going on for too long to deny that Barbie somehow touches something deep within many girls of all ages.
What that is, though, I have no idea.
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)I was not allowed to have Barbie dolls.
Even though I didn't like playing with dolls or have any other dolls, I wanted one because: a) my friends had them, b) I wasn't allowed to have one, c) I like tiny things, so the miniaturization appealed to me, d) I like collections of things and there was a series of stuff you could collect (clothes, etc.).
This was in the early 70's and my mother never gave in because "Barbie is a poor role model". (This mystified me because I didn't see any connection between that toy and "me".)
I also am Aspie and did not play with most toys "normally", so my experience doesn't count for anything other than my two cents.
Maybe I could lighten up on my Barbie hate, because if I had been allowed to play with Barbie, I am pretty sure it wouldn't have corrupted my psyche and turned me into a fembot.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)Nevertheless, I had at least a dozen from thoughtless people who gave them to me as gifts.
My ex bought a half dozen at least for our girls ... they do not play with dolls either. They got more from friends and family, more thoughtless gifts. Bratz, too.
I also had friends who got barbies they didn't want. There was lots of destructive playtime fun had at the expense of all of our dolls. I tried to get my kids to regift theirs, but none of their friends liked them, either. They ended up donated. I wonder if the eventual lucky recipient liked barbies either.
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)She was hardcore.
I do seem to remember my friends spending more time popping their heads off than anything else.
The Barbie thing is an odd phenomenon. I am not around kids at all, so I don't know what typical "Barbie play behavior" is these days.
Do kids really like them... or are they just so ubiquitous that everybody has them and everybody thinks little girls want/need them?
I am curious now.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)It does make one wonder...
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)I wonder if Bratz are suffering the same fate as Barbie has over the years?
Why Do We Destroy Our Barbie Dolls?
Jezebel heroine Sarah Haskins describes her destruction of Barbie as a natural part of growing up: "I'm sure my mom was happy when, soon after we chopped off Barbie's locks to reveal a biker-gang look, my sister and I phased Barbie out," Haskins writes, "But I don't think she had anything to worry about in the first place. We always knew that Barbie represented an absurd fantasy. Because she was so clearly not real, we were as likely to aspire to Barbie's proportions as we were to take to the ring with Hulk Hogan."
As Haskins notes, Barbie is, essentially, a bizarro blank canvas for many girls; her shape and proportions are already ridiculous enough; for many of us, dying her hair and giving her "tattoos" and attaching her arms where her legs used to be was just an outlet for curiosity and creativity, though typing all of these things out makes it seem much creepier than it actually was at the time.
As Steinberg notes, in 2005, Dr. Agnes Nairn concluded that the "mutilations" taken against Barbie were a symbol that she was, essentially, a "hate figure" for young girls. "The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving," Nairn wrote, "The girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a 'cool' activity in contrast to other forms of play with the doll."
Others aren't so sure that girls are going Patrick Bateman on their Barbies out of hate as much as, as I suspect for myself, out of boredom: "It seemed the obvious thing to do," says mechanic Sharon Allen, "Barbies were just so boring. I never really liked them. You couldn't really do anything with themexcept, of course, melt them."
http://jezebel.com/5166340/why-do-we-destroy-our-barbie-dolls
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)two different fantasies.
Barbie is the Princess, with all the shallow flash of entitlement and the idealized perfect body, home, clothes, boyfriend... A Disney movie.
Bratz are street hookers shooting up with rap stars.
Neither seems a particularly good fantasy for little girls and if I had a daughter and a choice, I'd probably go more for rag dolls. Let her build her own fantasy.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)Well said.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)As for the slut-shaming (heavy makeup & sexy clothes = street hookers?) and the ... I don't even know what to call the "shooting up with rap stars" part
Congrats on managing to apply the Madonna/whore concept bullshit to fucking dolls.
Ugh, just no.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)ever notice Wilma Flintstone's feet? Other cartoon characters? The Chinese practiced footbinding to ensure the woman couldn't move around much, but here in the West we still have those tiny feet as some sort odd ideal. Remember size 12 feet trying to fit into a 10? 10s into an 8? Huge breasts, tiny waist, not so big hips... all part of the same fantasy ideal.
It's fantasy, ferchrissakes, and the point is to avoid reality.
As to the slut-shaming-- what were your thoughts when you saw your first Bratz doll? Mine involved hooker chic and gonorrhea.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)"Fuck this shit" The first time I saw Bratz dolls actually. And something very rude having to do with how their faces are designed. Think blow up doll.
I make fun of Bratz dolls every chance I get. The more enlightened mothers and fathers I talk too want nothing to do with them.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)I am careful not to teach my kids to slut-shame. Using "hooker" in a derogatory fashion and criticizing hypersexualized clothing using that language are things I simply do not do, for what I would have thought were obvious reasons.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)Or whore anymore, although for a long time I saw nothing wrong with them. Part of it was having friends in the biz, if you're a whore you're a whore, so what? Whores called themselves whores.
Then I realized how tainted and damaging the words are, especially to women. (My early contacts were with very young men selling their bodies men on the street) I started using the words sex worker, and apply it universally to everything from those who work to streets to baristas who take their clothes off to sell coffee. Anything to do with commerce and sexual activity.
Because I am also so very tired as well of women being degraded.
That being said, I understand TB's point. Not everyone makes that journey with words. The dolls look like---sex workers--if you like, all plumped up to perform specific acts. The company that makes them is taking a hypersexualized product and marketing it to little girls. this look is reinforced by certain music artists--also admired by children. If we are we take back our sexuality, we're going to do it in the atmosphere of now. Of current perceptions. Of what sells, and the biggest coin of all is still a women's sexuality. And you are so right, Finding ways to communicate that without shaming women will include not shaming sex workers.
TB He called it a fantasy, indicated it a false one. Saying 'give them rag dolls and let them make their own fantasy' is admirable to me, because fantasy in a child should shouldn't have anything to do with sex work or being degraded--things that Bratz dolls represent by their existence.
Whatever you say or don't say to a child about Brazt dolls,(clearly a hooker on crack isn't one of those things) the explanation will be difficult, because of the world we're surrounded by. Talk among adults is sometimes, but not all the time, or even most of the time, easier to communicate thought and concept.
Changing how we communicate concepts like sex work is even more difficult.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)Not using loaded words for sex workers just seems intuitive to me.
It seems like it'd be especially intuitive to someone who thinks sex work shouldn't be stigmatized, should be legal, etc. So... to most people on DU.
So ... I'm confused about the use of words used to describe sex workers being used as negative descriptors. (not really, I totally get it, and it fucking pisses me the fuck off)
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)A strong voice that needs to be heard. Don't change a thing.
I figure we're all on a learning curve. Myself as well.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)Is that ever true-- a huge problem is our schizoid view of sex.
We're all obsessed with it, but like the Victorians we repress all public and open desire. Porn is evil, but look how popular it is. Prostitution is illegal most places, but look how common and profitable it is. And just plain cheating-- half the marriages one or both is screwing around.
Sex happens to be fun. Biologically, it is every bit as much fun and satisfying as eating a good meal, winning a footrace, or taking a good piss. Or more so. So why is it such a huge problem and never talked about, only talked around?
redqueen
(115,096 posts)Sex is biological. We almost all do it.
The only sticking point is how it's perverted by capitalism. Some people don't see it as a problem, other people see the problems manifestations as symptoms but fail to see the cause.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)now to remember what I said.
"Hooker" can take many shades and often as not is meant s demeaning. But, sex work, like any other occupation, has a continuum from the fine to not so good, even evil, maybe. So, when I use it I risk it being a code word and bringing up other side issues.
No one seems to have a problem when I compare Barbie to a vapid Valley Girl. A Valley Girl, btw, who could end up dumping Ken for a guy 40 years older who has a Gulfstream. If she did, would that be the high end of sex work?
Although, I do not condemn or want to shame the low end street hooker, calling her that seems to be a problem. Often as not she's a victim with no way out and the pimps, dealers, kidnappers, international white slavers, and other scum who pushed her there are the ones who should be called out and condemned. Prosecuted, too. (I'll settle for her brothers beating the shit out them, if it wasn't her brothers who sold her in the first place). But, I digress.
The word is how I chose to illustrate how little girls should not be shown Bratz as an admirable lifestyle. I don't want to talk that way to the little girls who are targeted by Bratz dolls, but to the useless adults who encourage it. It's language they might understand. Would there be a better way to get the point across? Most likely, but that's the one I chose.
I suspect we are in agreement on the basic point-- Bratz dolls suck.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)Sometimes finding the basic agreement, is the key for communication. Brats dolls do suck..
If my kids got barbies and Ken for gifts, and they did, if I played with the kids, Ken was always gay. I forget what i did with barbie. I think I turned her into Courtney Love. I mean what else What do you do with an heteronormative idiocy like Ken and Barbie?
My grand kids are getting leaning electronics once the little guys reach a certain age--and whatever my husband picks out. He has a gift for picking out fun things that kids use that are (cheap) inexpensive.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)Have you heard the term "No human involved"? It's a way that police close cases of rape and murder against these and other kinds of women who are so thoroughly dehumanized.
Yes, hypersexualized toys suck, whatever type they are - barbie or bratz. That doesn't mean it's OK to maintain the ingrained demonization of women while attacking the dolls. You said yourself these women are often victims, why is it ok to use the popular term for them in a derogatory way?
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm attacking you personally. I don't mean to. I am very passionate about these issues as you know. That's all it is. There are very few people here that I would consider worthy of personal attacks. You're not one of them.