Barbie Case

"Adorable; billowy, breathtaking; charming, chic; dazzling, delicate, dramatic; elegant and exquisite; fanciful, fashionable, and fetching; glamorous and glittering; graceful; lovely; radiant, regal, romantic; shimmering, sparkling, stunning. These adjectives pervade Mattel's advertisements for Barbie" (Rogers 1). These are some of society's views on Barbie, and these alluring words are what builds a young girls fantasy world. Being a part of this fantasy world, young girls want to be a mirror image of Barbie, thus negatively impacting them in the real world by changing their standards about their physical appearance in this male dominant society.

Since the beginning of time, toys have often been an indicator of the way a society behaves and how they interact with each other. Within our society, there is an extraordinary want and need for women to be perfect on the outside. There is too much importance and too much anxiety placed on women to surrender to the image of becoming a Barbie doll. Society today has not only brainwashed the women today, but also the men to believe that in order for a person to look beautiful, they must look like the images seen on television and on the cover of magazines. These images portray thin women and muscular men with the infamous six-pack abs.

Ruth Handler created Barbie in 1959. Handler found a successful German adult doll called 'Bild Lilli doll', from which she modeled the Barbie doll after. She was inspired when she observed her daughter, Barbara playing with paper dolls and imagining them in grown up roles. Mattel has been concealing the true identity and origin of Barbie: a prostitute (Peers 139-140).

Barbie became a popular icon, although she has gone through many changes and makeovers throughout the years, girls still want to play with the adult shaped dolls. Since being on the market, Barbie has been played with by today's parents and makes them much more likely to buy a brand that they are familiar with for their children. Because of Barbie's powerful influences, she is sometimes held responsible for changing little girls' into women of society. Barbie portrays to women that they must be submissive, abnormally thin, and she gives the female population an unreasonable dream to achieve, making young girls feel as though they are not good enough for society if they are not up to Barbie's standards. Barbie seems to be the view of how women of all races and socioeconomic status should appear; having long slender legs and body, thin waist, long blonde hair, elaborate homes, and flashy cars. Nothing about Barbie is ever masculine, even when she is on the police force; having no gun and no handcuffs. It is this false portrayal of beauty that leads teenage girls to having eating disorders, anorexia nervosa and bulimia, and to cosmetic surgery in adult women.

Not only does Barbie demonstrate