Die, Barbie

Barbie shows Ken what it's really like to pretend to be dominant

Just when grown women have finally stopped carrying Hello Kitty handbags, Mattel launches "Barbie clothes" for adults. That's right. Now actual full-sized sexbots with tiny high-heel-shaped feet and wasp-waists can buy $176 dollar Barbie jeans and $140 Barbie sweatshirts. With the popularity of the vile dolls creeping justly towards the crapper, the toy company reasons that designer Barbie Luxe brand clothing "will catch on with trendsetting teens and women" to whom the prepubescent look for "aspiration," thereby causing said 8-year-olds to hound their mothers for new Barbies.

Spending 140 bucks on a pink Barbie sweatshirt is pretty sad, but buying a Barbie for your daughter is the Western equivalent of holding her down while grandma slices off her clitoris with a piece of broken glass.

Thanks for the link Leslie.

Comments

[Amy's Brain Today]

Yech! Can it BE a coincidence that the spokesdude/VP for global marketing is named DICK-SON??????

[Chris Clarke]

buying a Barbie for your daughter is the Western equivalent of holding her down while grandma slices off her clitoris with a piece of broken glass.

Ms Faster;

My client, the Mattel Corporation, demands that you immediately cease and desist from quoting that slogan, or revealing any other part of Mattel's planned 2007 Barbie marketing campaign.

Yrs sincrly,
etc.

... buying a Barbie for your daughter is the Western equivalent of holding her down while grandma slices off her clitoris with a piece of broken glass.

::: exhausts self with loud cheering :::

[norbizness]

Actually, the Barbie adult jeans are outfitted with a microchip in either ass pocket, so that when it recognizes a friendly co-worker pat, it responds by saying "Oh, you! (giggle)"

[Sara*]

All my Barbies ended up with consistently bald heads. I used to take the arms and legs of both Barbie and Ken and switch them. Ken the drag queen and Barbie the stone butch.

I think I started early.

[CafeSiren]

My niece is turning 3, and I'm picking out birthday presents from a list of potential things that she wants/likes, now that she's old enough to have preferences. She likes barbies, and has also requested a "princess dress." Luckily, she also likes books, puzzles, and wooden trains, so I've got plenty of non-patriarchal materials to work with.

And Norbizness -- If I had been drinking milk, it would have come out my nose when I read your post.

[ae]

"Barbie Luxe." Bwaaahhhahahahah!

Dude, any damn time you have to assert the luxeosity of your product, it is quite obviously -- what's a polite term for "white trash"? 'Hackneyed patriarchal crap' will do.

Shoutout to my parents who never considered getting me a Barbie. Ptooie. I did have a Stretch Armstrong though, because practicing tearing someone limb from limb is good practice for fighting the patriarchy.

Good one, Norbiz. Won't it be funny when those chips get switched w/ the ones in G.I. Joe pants? "Vengeance is mine!"

[ae]

Cafesiren, have you thought about getting your niece "The Paper Bag Princess"? It is a wonderful antidote to the more "traditional" princess crap.

[flea]

The reason the popularity of Barbie is going down the crapper is because little girls are clamoring for the vagina-mouthed, video vixen-clad Bratz nowadays.

I have yet to go to a children's party for a little girl that did not have the handwritten "NO BRATZ!" scrawled by the tot's mother at the bottom of the invitation, but evidently *some* parents are buying them.

[sparklegirl]

I'm equally disgusted at the thought of Barbie clothing for adults, but...um...what's wrong with Hello Kitty handbags? I love them, and I always thought they were just cute and playful. But then again I guess being 20 doesn't count as being a grown woman....

[AndiF]

This makes me very happy. I enjoyed smirking at dolls and all their stupid accouterments my entire childhood, now I get to revive the practice in middle-age. Who says the patriarchy never does anything good?

And I'll bet this will just thrill the guys who own Real Dolls.

[grammazon]

Switching the voice-boxes of Barbie and GI Joe is a famous culture jam. Check out the excellent documentary "The Yes Men." See! Barbie threaten her enemies with death. Hear! GI Joe extol the virtues of shopping for pretty clothes.

[JeffL]

buying a Barbie for your daughter is the Western equivalent of holding her down while grandma slices off her clitoris with a piece of broken glass.

No, it's really not. Yes, Barbie is the patriarchy all wrapped up in a pretty pink bow, but there is no way that purchasing anything is morally equivalent to performing a clitorectomy.

[CafeSiren]

AE -- Just went to Amazon & checked out the link to the PBP -- Great stuff! So... why do I hesitate? Because I'm afraid to impose my values on my brother's family. ::sigh::

Would-be patriarchy-bashers should not be this timid. Maybe I'll get the book for her, in a package of several books. Stealth feminism for the kiddies.

[rich]

"but there is no way that purchasing anything is morally equivalent to performing a clitorectomy."

In other words, Jeff, you're obviously smarter and more moral than feminists. Just how stupid do you think everyone else is?

[JeffL]

In other words, Jeff, you're obviously smarter and more moral than feminists. Just how stupid do you think everyone else is?

Wow. Project much, Rich? Where did I say I'm smarter? Or that anyone here is stupid?

Perhaps I wasn't clear, so let me try again. The amount of damage done by buying a Barbie and the amount of damage done by performing a clitorectomy are not the same -- they're not even in the ballpark. Twisty, if you were going for the laugh, well, I didn't find it very funny. If, OTOH, you really do think they are the same, I disagree, and would like to hear more from you (or you, Rich) on how you came to believe they are the same.

[ae]

Cafesiren, far be it for me to meddle in your family's affairs (like the patriarchy will), but you're her aunt, you love her, and it's not as if books are the only influence you'll exert in her life. Besides, one little book can hardly combat the entirety of redundant patriarchal crap she'll be fed from Day One. You'll make the best decision for your family, stealth or unabashed. Might I suggest that once she's digested TPBP, you move on to "Princess Smartypants"? =)

[Chris Clarke]

Twisty, if you were going for the laugh, well, I didn't find it very funny.

Excellent.

Eviscerating the clueless, as they say, is the best medicine. Nice of Jeff to expose his seamy underbelly.

[Kyra]

"buying a Barbie for your daughter is the Western equivalent of holding her down while grandma slices off her clitoris with a piece of broken glass."

Barbie can be outgrown.

Sara---Interesting. I used to create porn scenes with my Barbies. Not the best of porn, though, seeing as they weren't anatomically correct. Worst damage the things did to me was when my mother came in and found my boxful of naked Barbie & Ken dolls and went through them saying "This one is naked . . . and this one is indecent . . . and this one is exposed . . ." while dressing them, coming up with a new negative connotation for nudity with every single doll. Ugh.

[CafeSiren]

"Barbie can be outgrown."

True. But not without positive messages to counteract the Barbification of young girls. I had barbies as a kid; I had horrible body image problems growing up. But I don't think that eliminating Barbie alone would have had me grow up loving my slightly lumpy body. Barbie is one voice in a shrieking chorus that tells girls that they're not quite good enough, and the only way to be good enough is to be "pretty." Not to mention having nice clothes.

AE, my niece lives in another state, so, while I wish I could be around to serve as an living (single, professional, mostly happy) antidote to patriarchy, I can't. At least, not on a daily basis.

[kabbage]

Is anyone else picturing the line of Barbie coffins and funeral accoutrements that could be showing up in the next 20 years or so?

[ae]

JeffL, I'll take a stab at it. I'm not sure Twisty was being funny, per se. In fact, the impact on the psyches of girl children of immobile, fashion-fetishist role model dolls with unreal bodies and no script other than "Math is hard" is decidedly unfunny, which I take to be the point. Hyperbole is a common rhetorical tool employed to give greater emphasis to one's statement. Comparing Barbie-related bullshit to clitoridectomy highlights the nefarious impact of what some would consider a (generally) harmless action and underscores Twisty's feelings on the matter, to boot. Twisty can speak to her motives better than I can, of course.

Twisty, maybe in lieu of the Wish List (since amazon leans Repub anyway), you could set up a PO Box? I promise no "luxe" goods, unless they come w/ 14 levels of irony.

Cafesiren, heck.

[CafeSiren]

Barbie & c-ectomy, IMO, fall along a continuum that we can label "enforcement of patriarchal values." Boob jobs fall somewhere in the middle. All three are bad for girls and grown women.

I wonder if there are going to be barbie-luxe jeans made in anything over a size 12.

[Pinko Punko]

My feeling is that Barbie is the opposite of what Twisty says (a clitorodectomy)- I think it essentially says, no this is all that women are good for. I really do think it is the opposite and worse, even- it is not the denial of female sexuality, it is the absement of female sexuality as the means of satisfying the male. On the Western side I think that women are encouraged to appear as if they have also been satisfied, solely for the support of the man's self-esteem. So I would have taken the hyperbole in the other direction. That's just moi.

I really really don't want my kids to have Barbies.

[Leslie]

Having raised two rather well adjusted, nearly grown, sensible girls, I'm here to tell ya that girls will play with barbie dolls no matter what lengths you go to to avoid their contact with said creatures. And sometimes they still grow up well adjusted and "normal" in "our" sense of the word (that being none too normal to the rest of society). That being said, I still find it amazing that grown women would choose to don such crap.
So chill, guys, Barbie didn't ruin me, and likely won't ruin your kids either.
Twisty, thought you'd appreciate the fodder... it had your name on it!