What's a Best Seller in the MidEast? BARBIE...With A Prayer Mat

[Dover]

Bestseller in Mideast: Barbie With a Prayer Mat

By KATHERINE ZOEPF
Published: September 22, 2005

The very popular Fulla doll is sold in the Middle East wearing either a black abaya or a white head scarf and long coat. Under these modest coverings, the dolls wear fashionable dresses.

________________________________________________________________

DAMASCUS, Syria, Sept. 21 - In the last year or so, Barbie dolls have all but disappeared from the shelves of many toy stores in the Middle East. In their place, there is Fulla, a dark-eyed doll with, as her creator puts it, "Muslim values."

Fulla roughly shares Barbie's size and proportions, but steps out of her shiny pink box wearing a black abaya and matching head scarf. She is named after a type of jasmine that grows in the Levant, and although she has an extensive and beautiful wardrobe (sold separately, of course), Fulla is usually displayed wearing her modest "outdoor fashion."

Fulla's creator, NewBoy Design Studio, based in Syria, introduced her in November 2003, and she has quickly become a best seller all over the region. It is nearly impossible to walk into a corner shop in Syria or Egypt or Jordan or Qatar without encountering Fulla breakfast cereal or Fulla chewing gum or not to see little girls pedaling down the street on their Fulla bicycles, all in trademark "Fulla pink."

Young girls here are obsessed with Fulla, and conservative parents who would not dream of buying Barbies for their daughters seem happy to pay for a modest doll who has her own tiny prayer rug, in pink felt. Children who want to dress like their dolls can buy a matching, girl-size prayer rug and cotton scarf set, all in pink...cont'd

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/international/middleeast/22doll.html?ex=1128052800&en=2f6047d5077f1907&ei=5070&emc=eta1

[Fridays Child]

1. Mattel is probably kicking itself for not thinking of it first.

[Maple]

2. Toys as propaganda weapons

We do it too.

Along with a wretched deluge of pink.

A color I've long since come to hate.

[delhurgo]

3. Right, except our Barbies have careers, drive cars,

dress in whatever clothing that they want,... and symbolize the independence of a modern woman.

Theirs is covered head to foot in religious garb and is essentially a slave to their husbands.

Maybe you think there's an equivalence in that, but I sure don't.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. get mat burns

[delhurgo]

7. Who's Matt Burns? nm

[Maple]

5. 'Our' Barbie

has had a recent make-over...still a ridiculous figure, and still a pink house and a pink car...but finally allowed to have a career. Or at least the clothes for it.

'Their' Barbie can also be a teacher or a doctor. She just wears an abaya while out.

Both are cultural 'role models.'

[delhurgo]

6. Imagine a Barbie in conservative dress, with a Marilyn Quayle hairstyle,

holding a Bible - that would be the christian version of Fulla Barbie. Not something I think you'd be so quick to defend.

And at least our girls have a choice about what they want to play with. You don't like Barbie, fine - buy something else to play with. In most muslim countries its probably Fulla or nothing. I can assure you you wouldn't be allowed to play with an American Barbie in Iran. But if you want to sell Fulla barbie here in America (if any kid would even want it, which I would hope not), you're free to do so.

[Maple]

8. I've seen Barbies like that

She's been around awhile ya know. Lotta versions.

Our girls don't have a choice what they play with either. You just prefer our propaganda to theirs.

[delhurgo]

9. Yeah, I prefer our 'propaganda' of women having freedom

and being equal to men.

"Our girls don't have a choice what they play with..." Apparently you didn't read the story; Fulla Barbies are for sale here in America. American Barbies are not for sale in Iran, I assure you.

[Maple]

10. And dolls to model your life after

in pink.

It's all propaganda. Either place.

And Iranians do indeed have Barbies.

[delhurgo]

12. You can buy Barbies in Islamic Iran? You can't even buy food there.

There's nothing wrong with pink. Don't like it, buy a Barbie in another color. Theres all races too. Its a free country.

[Maple]

14. I think you've got your countries confused

Iran doesn't have a problem with food, and young women wear make-up, and have jeans on under their abaya.

All girls stuff here is loaded with pink. There are even pink toolkits for grown women.

[delhurgo]

15. They're lucky they export oil or they wouldn't have any food.

Otherwise their economy's a joke. And their young women are oppressed by the theocracy there, even though they are rebelling - good for them.

If stuff is "loaded with pink" thats because thats what sells in the marketplace. Like I said, its a free country.

[Maple]

17. They're not 'lucky' at all

They're simply using one of their resources, the same way the US does.

Do you think they'd starve if they lost their oil? Nooooo

Women believe in Islam you know, much like women believe in Christianity. Even though neither of them are kind to women.

And 'pink' isn't what 'sells' in the marketplace...pink is the color you've been sold for girls.

Pink is just a color...advertising has told you it's 'feminine', and you bought the idea.

Just like white for weddings, and diamonds for rings.

That's mostly been from the 50's.

Advertising baloney.

[really annoyed]

23. Barbie is propaganda?

I'm glad her powers didn't work on me. I prefer wearing black to pink.

But I AM glad that my oldest niece lost interest of Barbies at a young age and enjoys reading. :)

But I do wonder what her Dad would think of this doll - he is from Jordan and raising my oldest niece and nephew in the Islamic faith.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

11. slightly off topic: The Barbie Liberation Organisation

a very early project from the boys at rTMark:


Teen Talk Barbie proved to be the final straw. People who were already upset at Barbie's anorexic figure and her way of turning play into superficial consumerism couldn't believe their ears when Barbie's electric voice box giggled:

“Math is hard!”
“I love shopping!”
“Will we ever have enough clothes?”


In 1989 the Barbie Liberation Organization was formed. Taking advantage of similarities in the voice hardware of Teen Talk Barbie and the Talking Duke G.I. Joe doll, er, “action figure,” they absconded with several hundred of each and performed a stereotype-change operation on the lot.

The surgery was no simple matter - circuit boards had to be trimmed, a capacitor moved, and a switch re-engineered. The press made it sound like an easy pop-and-switch operation, but this took some research and dedication.

The BLO returned the altered dolls to the toy store shelves, who then resold them to children who had to invent scenarios for Barbies who yelled “Vengeance is mine!” and G.I. Joes who daydreamed “Let's plan our dream wedding!” Cleverly placed “call your local TV news” stickers on the back ensured that the media would have genuine recipients to interview as soon as the news broke.

One BLO member counted up the many benefits of their program: “The storekeepers make money twice, we stimulate the economy - the consumer gets a better product - and our message gets heard.”

http://www.sniggle.net/barbie.php

and make the news it did! An NBC transcript:

http://www.rtmark.com/legacy/bloscript.html

they've recently become "The Yes Men" and there is a very fine documentary available following some of their work giving spoof lectures to audiences expecting WTO spokesmen.

[Maple]

13. LOL I love it!

:rofl:

[delhurgo]

16. Fulla Barbie,

"Death to Infidels"
"Death to America"
"Allah be Praised"

[Maple]

18. Barbie Barbie

'Death to Muslims'

'Death to the ME'

'God be praised'

Same diff.

[Mabel Dodge]

19. Barbie and Fulla have one thing in common....

they look "perfect". We can't have little girls playing with any fat Fullas or Barbies. Maybe our cultures have more in common than we care to admit.

[patdem]

20. There ya go...a person with sense...a way to bring us together!

I do not like either doll...they are both stereotypical and not progressive...wonder of the Fulla doll has big boobs under her habib? Could a woman in America become a doctor if not for big boobs and a small waist? I guess we will never know the answers to those very important questions, will we?

[Nikia]

21. Is it really less oppressive to wear a bikini than modest garb?

Of course it is better if people have the freedom to choose what they wear and the mostly covered fashion might get hot in warm weather. If women do have a choice though, even if it is culturually influenced, is it worse to cover up than to be very uncovered? If I want to wear fashioned clothing and want to go to a bar, why do I have to go to a strip club to avoid being looked at as a piece of meat and sexually harassed? Why does that happen at the grocery store to a lesser extent? I sometimes think that there might be some freedom in dressing more modestly. I guess it depends on how one sees freedom.

[fortyfeetunder]

22. What's the big deal?

I don't have a problem with the Fulla doll. No more than the Barbie thing.

It's not only Muslims that believe in modest wear. There are other religions where women dress modestly. Mattel still has a chance, or better yet, some young lady who wants to be an entrepreneur and make the outfits here in the states for dolls...

Next I want a Sikh GI Joe doll. Where can I get one of these?

[bemildred]

24. Yeah, WGAS. What a tempest in a teapot. nt