Barbie says "Be Yourself" and I agree with her

The barbie doll I ordered a few days ago for my art coursework has just been delivered to my door. I sit for a while looking at the box and the monster that lies dormant inside it. After I have wrestled her out of her clear plastic coffin and untangled her from her shackles of clear plastic bands that keep her hands strapped to her sides and unwound the thread that stops her hair from being tousled in the box, she lies in my hand like a remote control. She is slighter, lighter, smaller than she seems in my child eye memory. Her face seems crueler. Her hips are narrower. Her legs are skinnier too, I'm sure, and her shoes are higher. Her plastic flesh is less glossy and less sticky than it was. This model is less busty than the previous design but, fret not, she still has those same strange echoes of feet. Her head is still disproportionately large, like a globe balanced on her neck. Her hair is undeniably blonde. She stills wears those weird knickers moulded out of her skin and, while her bum is definitely more defined than it was, she remains utterly vagina-less. She still bears her iconic back tattoo, made in China. This Barbie is kitted out for a night on the town, (her box proclaimed her part of the "fashionista" collection so I trust her style expertise) sporting a hot pink metallic pencil skirt and a t-shirt emblazoned with- I think we can all agree- Barbie's mantra:

Oh, the irony. 

I might be wrong- this mass produced, plastic, perma-smile princess might have a fully formed, complex personality (what a terrifying thought) but I was pretty sure that these dolls weren't famous, or infamous, for encouraging and embracing the diversity and individuality of human beings. Barbie, I suppose, is diverse- you can purchase a barbie with brown hair and she has quite an extensive wardrobe, if you are prepared to pay, including a staggering variety of wedding dresses and bathing suits. bleurgh. 

There is something a little sinister about Barbie proclaiming that girls should be themselves. Not that i don't think the message "be yourself" is sinister, quite the opposite in fact, but I think my discomfort comes from the fact that there is something... oxymoronic about Barbie supporting the cause of individuality. Barbie, after all, as an icon, is the monster that we rally against for indoctrinating young girls with a twisted concept of what a beautiful body is, what a woman's value is derived from and what a rich and full life is- she is the beach blonde, pouty, pinked dictator of what is pretty, girly, fun and fashionable. She is lined up on shelves next to an army of unblinking clones. She is a trend setter, a trend imposer, a trend enforcer. 

While I was scrolling through barbie after barbie online to try and find one within my price range (no, thank you, my art project really does not require a bedecked ball gown barbie for £37.99 plus postage) I met barbie on her way to the spa, barbie in her chelsea club house, barbie waiting for her dinner date, barbie in a wedding dress, barbie being a mermaid, barbie at the stable, barbie at the hairdresser, barbie getting a sushi lunch, and, perhaps more surprisingly to me at least, Barbie playing tennis and football and going kayaking, a girl band of guitar playing barbies and in the "I can be" section, barbie posed in various professional roles. 

This was interesting to me. Perhaps Barbie really was now using her majesty of the market to encourage girls to pursue a wide range of careers... yes! here was Barbie as a babysitter, a zoo doctor and an entrepreneur, a teacher, a vet and a paediatrician! All good, right? Except that in every one of these sets, (except entrepreneur barbie who stands all alone in a pink suit with her smart phone and tablet) Barbie is looking after either a baby animal or a small child. Not that it's not important that someone looks after animals and children, not that all of these careers that Barbie has taken up aren't admirable and essential services, but I simply wonder whether Barbie can ever represent working women without maternalising them or pinking them up or reinforcing the idea that women are really only good at looking after people. Why does barbie have to be a paediatrician? could she not have been a doctor, without a defined specialism so that the child could have imagined what sort of work she might do? Why is it so important to insist that the only doctoring Barbie would do, would be for children? Why is soccer player barbie's kit so tight fitting? surely that's not very ergonomic when it comes to dashing round the pitch? Why must every professional barbie wear tightly fitting clothes and high heels? 

And Why are all of these career barbie dolls white? In fact, the only black barbie dolls I saw on the barbie website were in two photos advertising the collection but when I scrolled through to see if I could find these dolls, they didn't seem to be available to purchase. I have never seen a barbie doll with an afro. Besides the china barbie in the "Barbie doll of the world" collection (which does not count, it's just barbie in a red, embroidered dress and red lipstick with a panda balanced on her hip and a hair style that apparently "evokes an eastern style", meaning only that it's black, not blonde), I have never seen an east asian Barbie, or, for that matter, pretty much any barbie that would not tick "white british" or "white american" on a form. 

Barbie, as we all know, is a white woman who is perpetually young, dangerously out of proportion and has the emotional range of... well... the mould her plastic face was made in. She does not represent or root for individuality, no matter what her t-shirt might say. She is destined only ever to work in pink clothing and excruciatingly high heels, to work only with things that need her womanly love and affection and to work only for a system that indoctrinates young girls and fosters in them a sense of duty to fit the barbie mould, and if they don't meet her exacting standards, a sense of inadequacy and shame. She is the smiling mascot of capitalism. She is the child friendly champion of patriarchy. She is the embodiment of status quo. 

Oh yes, she wants you to "be yourself" but she wants you to want to be her. She wants you to be tired and miserable and ashamed of being yourself. She wants you to compare yourself to her and find yourself wanting. 

She wants you to be yourself in her shadow, BUT remember that barbie is only 11 and half inches tall so her shadow is easily stepped out of. 

Barbie proclaims "be yourself", but I mean it. Yourself is much better than barbie's self. Barbie's self has been manipulated and rewritten a million times to make her easier to flog to small children, to make her more attractive, to make her seem less threatening. Barbie's self can be bought for £7.99. Barbie's self can be reproduced and mass produced. Barbie's self gets lost and grown out of and thrown away. Barbie's self is disposable and replaceable. Yourself is none of those things. 

The scariest thing about receiving my barbie gargoyle in the post was that I felt that old, childish excitement and enthusiasm about taking her out of her packaging, smoothing out her hair, adjusting her accessories, making her do the splits... I thought too, initially, before I really looked at her, "how pretty she is". I thought how much I'd like to have legs as long and thin as hers, a stomach as flat, arms as slim... And then I snapped myself out of it. I reminded myself that- thank god- i will never be barbie. I must "be myself" and I am glad of that, because I'd rather be me, with all of my idiosyncrasies and flaws and fuck ups, than just another barbie in a plastic prison on a shelf, waiting to be bought by a child who wants to lose themselves for a moment in a game. 

So even if we shouldn't listen to Barbie on any other issue, she might be onto something with this one...

Vida
xx