Unrealistic ideals of beauty and body image have infiltrated
the minds of America’s youth, following them into adulthood. Innocently enough, as young children we play
with dolls and Barbies—and as the toy section is gendered, young boys are
taught to play with their action figures—but these toys set unrealistic
expectations of how our bodies should look: Barbies all have small feet, small
waists, and large chests; they wear lots of makeup and have “perfect” hair; the
action figures marketed to young boys all have muscular builds and are either
heroes or manual laborers. These
childhood toys have largely contributed to the distorted standards of beauty
and body image that we have in western culture.
Beauty ideals that exist in our western culture are damaging to young
men and women. Barbie dolls and other
toys or shows marketed to young women set “an ideal of beauty defined as thin,
lean, tall, young, white, and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed
hair” and can lead to eating disorders or self hatred if one does not quite fit
with the ideals (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 210).
I like the idea of this new doll, and like you, could say a bunch of things about the "Average is beautiful" slogan as it seems counterintuitive. Anyways, I think that the doll is a step in the right direction in terms of combating body image issues, but I don't think that it is anywhere close to being considered a solution. Even if the doll does send a positive message about their body image, they will still be faced with a variety of other cultural practices and images that will counteract that message. Primarily, I don't think the doll will replace the traditional barbie, which means that its creation isn't guaranteed to be nearly as popular as the barbies that have been successful in the past. From my perspective, it seems that the creation of the doll is more of a ploy to try to market their product to people aware of body image issues and seem like a progressive institution in regards to body image than to actually take a stance on body image and their role in it. Furthermore, our standard of beauty and body image is not created through the media, dolls, barbies, movies, or whatever else, they are merely reinforced through these entities.Therefore, the solution to these issues is not going to come from these outlets. Body image ideals are embedded in our culture, so if we want them to change, we have to change. Dolls like this could be an indication that we are starting to become more aware collectively (which is great), but I don't feel that they are going to be the solution to the issue, they will be byproducts of other solutions.
ReplyDeleteI would agree to the sense that the “Average Barbie” is bringing the historic doll closer to a real female figure. By aspects like you mentioned, less make up, shorter, smaller head, broader neck, and not as thin. However, there is one aspect that I totally disagree with when it comes to the slogan, “Average is Beautiful”. Yes, this doll is taking a step in the right direction, but know it is categorizing normal or “average” upon young female children. What if your body image is a bit bigger than the “average doll”? Does that mean you are not considered average? Then what are you? Personally, I don’t know much about dolls, but I don’t recall a slogan revolving around the original Barbie that categorized children. There was never a slogan that stated anything about being overly thin or extremely beautiful. Society put the derogatory label on Barbie because she portrayed an image that was detrimental to our youth. But this new Barbie has attached a label to it “average” and if you don’t match this type of Barbie than you are not average, you are an outcaste. How is that not detrimental to a young child? I can imagine a young female stumble across the new Barbie in the toy section and comparing themselves to the standard of “average”. The potential of mental harm to that child if their size doesn’t parallel with what society now sees as average. Yes, Barbie is moving in the right direction, however their seem to still be many flaws.
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