Barbie Girls Go Shopping
What Barbie is actually set up to do
in her popular new virtual world
is her ability to shop for stuff like
"miniskirts, tiaras or home accessories"
In other words, training girls
to grow up to be women who are
first and foremost consumers
A Barbie virtual world seems so much more
pernicious than Barbie the 11-inch doll
I'm sure Barbie Girls been focus-grouped like crazy,
and that TONS of young girls want their Barbies
to do nothing but go shopping and get makeovers
It's all about credit cards and cosmetics
Barbie Girls and the culture of consumptionThe All-American GirlBarbie 2.0Barbara Millicent Roberts an 11-inch- (29-cm-) tall plastic doll with the figure of an adult woman that was introduced in 1959 by Mattel, Inc., a southern California toy company.
Although Mattel has positioned Barbie as the ultimate American girl, the doll has never been manufactured in the United States, to avoid higher labour costs.
Today the doll has come to symbolize consumer capitalism and is as much a global brand as Coca-Cola, with key markets in Europe, Latin America, and Japan.
Barbie never caught on in the Muslim world, however. In 1995 Saudi Arabia stopped its sale because it violated the Islamic dress code.
Eventually, similar dolls, some complete with hijabs (head coverings), were marketed to Muslim girls.
Mattel registered Barbie as a work of art, but the doll has also inspired works of art, including a 1986 Andy Warhol portrait and photographs by William Wegman and David Levinthal.
Novelists, including A.M. Homes and Barbara Kingsolver, have used the doll in fiction.
When interpreting Barbie, artists tend to take one of two approaches: idealizing the doll or, more commonly, using the doll to critique ideas associated with it, from exaggerated femininity to profligate consumption.
For all the obsession with the “new” — media, paradigms, world orders, etc. — the “old” certainly has a way of sticking around.
Take Barbie, for instance — who is in the middle of one of her many renaissances. Mattel reports that they’ve had the biggest increase in Barbie purchases in almost four years.
Her re-invention could be called Barbie 2.0. Her new website — still in beta — is a social networking bonanza, signing up close to three millions users in a two-month period and adding about 50,000 more every day.
Unfortunately, Barbie and her acolytes’ sole activity on the site seems to be shopping — “training girls to grow up to be women who are first and foremost consumers.”
This is especially sad because the old-fashioned Barbie doll, despite the problematic body image she presents, at least requires “imaginative play” — allowing a little girl to imagine what it would be like to be a journalist or a “frontwoman of a rock band.”
I read last week about Mattel marketing a new Barbie website and other types of "virtual play" for girls.
Even though it's still in beta, in its first 60 days, the Barbie Girls site signed up three million members, and is adding another 50,000 every day.
I tried to log in and poke around the site, but it's been so jammed with visitors that I couldn't get it to load.
One of the reasons Barbie has historically had such a hold on young girls (and what I loved about Barbie as a kid) is that she's a grown-up.
I know this is one of the critiques of Barbie -- that she presents a very screwed up image of what an adult woman is supposed to physically look like.
As a kid, I loved Barbie because she wasn't a baby doll -- I had no interest in playing mommy.
I used Barbie to act out how I wanted to be as an adult. My Barbie was a journalist.
She wore men's sweaters sometimes. She always drove the red convertible. In her spare time, she was the frontwoman of a rock band.
What didn't she do? Go shopping. Sure, she had lots of fun outfits, but having her "purchase" more was never part of my play routine.
When I searched for descriptions of what Barbie is actually set up to do in her popular new virtual world, every article I found only mentioned her ability to shop for stuff like "miniskirts, tiaras or home accessories."
In other words, training girls to grow up to be women who are first and foremost consumers.
A Barbie virtual world seems so much more pernicious than Barbie the 10-inch doll. It's still got all the body- and beauty-standard issues that the old-school version has.
But at least girls can more easily impose their own personalities and interests onto a doll. It requires imaginative play.
I'm sure that Barbie Girls has been focus-grouped like crazy, and that TONS of young girls want their Barbies to do nothing but go shopping and get makeovers.
But it's really terrible (not to mention a wasted opportunity) to not include other activities.
Why couldn't they join a virtual rock band, or run for virtual office, or play virtual sports? (I can think of several great organizations that would have made perfect partners for a website like this.)
As the site stands now, though, where would a kid like I was fit into the Barbie Girls world?
From what I've read, the site features no fast cars, no rock band, no newsdesk. Just credit cards and cosmetics.
