Barbie -- a Plastic, Fantastic, Ideal Freak

 

Bild Lilli

 

Barbie Doll

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

by Marge Piercy

Barbie Is Born

American businesswoman Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children's toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of toy company Mattel, Inc. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel's directors.

With the idea in mind, during a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children, Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth came across a German toy doll called "Bild Lilli." The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel.

The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitung (translates as "photo newspaper). Lilli was a blonde bombshell, a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately.

A few years after her initial discovery in Europe, Ruth Handler created the Barbie doll using Bild Lilli as her inspiration. Barbie, the famous American fashion doll, was manufactured and launched by Mattel in March 1959. The doll had rooted hair and her shoes and earrings were not molded — apart from that she was a lookalike of Lilli.

Of course, Barbie created a rage. Around 350,000 Barbie dolls were sold during the first year, helped along no doubt by extensive TV advertising – a novel way of selling toys at the time, and soon Barbie became the figurehead of a brand of Mattel dolls and accessories, including other family members and collectible dolls. Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for over fifty years,

Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. In a series of novels published by Random House in the 1960s, her parents' names are given as George and Margaret Roberts from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin.  In the Random House novels, Barbie attended Willows High School.

Barbie has an on-off romantic relationship with her boyfriend Ken Carson, who first appeared in 1961. A news release from Mattel in February 2004 announced that Barbie and Ken had decided to split up, but in February 2006 they were hoping to rekindle their relationship after Ken had a makeover.

Barbie has had over 40 pets including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra. She has owned a wide range of vehicles, including pink Corvette convertibles, trailers, and jeeps. She also holds a pilot's license, and operates commercial airliners in addition to serving as a flight attendant.

Mattel has created a range of companions for Barbie, including Hispanic Teresa, Midge, African American Christie, and Steven (Christie's boyfriend). Barbie's siblings and cousins were also created including Skipper, Todd, and Stacie (twin brother and sister), Kelly, Krissy, and Francie. Barbie was friendly with Blaine, an Australian surfer, during her split with Ken in 2004.

Over the years Barbie has come under fire for many things, one for being a poor role model. In response to feminists who considered her a vacuous bimbo, Barbie evolved from being "just" a fashion model and has been given a range of occupations from surgeon to lawyer, pilot and stewardess, rock star, Olympic skier, firefighter, United States' President and McDonalds cashier, causing some critics to quip that Barbie is unable to hold down a job.
 
Probably the main criticism leveled at Barbie (in the West, at least) has been that she presents an unattainable body image to young girls, and that if she was 5 foot 6 instead of 11 1/2 inches tall, her measurements, would be 39-21-33. An academic expert once calculated that a woman's likelihood of being shaped like Barbie was less than 1 in 100,000. According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.

In 1965 Slumber Party Barbie came with a book entitled How to Lose Weight that advised: "Don't eat." The doll also came with pink bathroom scales reading 110lb, which would be around 35lbs underweight for a woman of Barbie’s height if translated to human proportions.

Critics say Barbie actually promotes this unrealistic idea of body image for young women, leading to a risk that girls who attempt to emulate her will become anorexic. At 5'9" tall and weighing 110 lbs, Barbie would have a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 16.24 and fit the weight criteria for anorexia.

Mattel has said that the waist of the Barbie doll was made small because the waistbands of her clothes, along with their seams, snaps, and zippers, added bulk to her figure.

Barbie Makeovers

Barbie’s highly successful form, despite its apparent homogeneity over decades, has never been fixed. Changes to Barbie began almost immediately, when her heavy makeup was removed in 1961. Barbie’s face alone can be used to map a series of telling changes to the image Barbie is designed to convey. Beginning in 1971, with Malibu Barbie, the doll began to look straight ahead rather than coyly to one side; and with the mid-1970s superstar face mold, Barbie gained as a permanent standard feature a dazzling smile rather than cupid’s-bow lips.

Some changes are short-lived -- for example, the introduction in 1970’s “Living Barbie” of jointed ankles, which allowed the doll to wear flat shoes as well as high heels. Others, such as bendable knees and a swivel waist, became part of the standard playline model. The history of Barbie’s physical form is one in which gradual design changes mark out the expected parameters of Barbie play, all of which tend toward making her lifestyle play more flexible.

When standard Barbie’s exaggerated attached eyelashes were replaced by less pronounced, painted-on eyelashes, this signaled, in part, changes to the role of makeup in dominant images of female beauty as well as changes to the presumed normative relationship between childhood play and adult gender roles.

Amid the controversy, in 1997 Mattel remolded Barbie to give their flagship icon a flatter chest, slimmer hips and a wider waist for a more "realistic" look. But apparently, her previously unrealistic proportions were nothing to do with the change. The intention, according to Mattel, was to give her a more teenage physique so that she could wear the fashions of the time and that fashion was dictating the change.

In 1999, the year Barbie celebrated her 40th birthday, it seemed Mattel was at last trying to address some of the criticism by becoming involved with a project called Ambassadors of Dreams which honored accomplished, trail-blazing women and promoted the message that "girls can be anything." Mattel donated around one million dollars to support programs that teach girls about technology, finance, math and science, career planning, and sports.

Middle Eastern countries and Christian groups have at times slammed Barbie, calling her postures shameful and her clothes "filth." In September 2003 Saudi Arabia outlawed the sale of Barbie dolls, saying that she did not conform to the ideals of Islam. The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stated "Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful." In Middle Eastern countries there is an alternative doll called Fulla which is similar to Barbie but is designed to be more acceptable to an Islamic market.

In December 2005 Dr. Agnes Nairn at the University of Bath in England published research suggesting that girls often go through a stage where they hate their Barbie dolls and subject them to a range of punishments, including decapitation and placing the doll in a microwave oven. Dr. Nairn said: "It's as though disavowing Barbie is a rite of passage and a rejection of their past."

In April 2009, the launch of a Totally Tattoos Barbie with a range of tattoos  that could be applied to the doll, including a lower back tattoo, led to controversy. Mattel's promotional material read "Customize the fashions and apply the fun temporary tattoos on you too", but Ed Mayo, chief executive of Consumer Focus, argued that children might want to get tattooed themselves.

The Poem "Barbie Doll"

In the poem "Barbie Doll," author Marge Piercy provides a scathing review of the cultural and societal expectations that American culture places on children, particularly young girls. The poem represents a short summary of a girl's life, beginning at birth and ending with a sad image of a funeral.

What does America typically represent to youth as being the "perfect woman"? Many would answer the Barbie doll. 

From birth and throughout her childhood, the typical "girl" in the poem is presented many popular American toys such as "GE stoves and irons" and "dolls that do pee-pee." All of these playthings are traditionally gender related and symbolic of novelties common to girlish play. 

Toys have always been used to stimulate the imagination and keep children occupied and entertained. And, it is important to consider that the young use toys to discover their identity, help their bodies grow strong, learn cause and effect, explore relationships, and practice skills they will need as adults.

"This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy."

The subliminal influence of her playthings is unsuspectingly absorbed into the girl's young subconscious like water into a sponge. To a "girlchild," the toys and imitative play is fun and nonjudgmental.

But, it is evident, during puberty, the speaker is particularly sensitive to a classmate's remark about her physical appearance: "You have a great big nose and fat legs." This is devastating news to the girl's sensitive consciousness.

The reader understands the shift of mood that occurs with maturation at this point in the poem. From playfulness and subconscious absorption to harsh reality and conscious understanding, the pubescent girl becomes fully aware of her physical deficiencies as judged by members of a Barbie-programmed society.

Here, Piercy reminds us that children can be harshly frank and openly judgmental as they play, and she means to extend her criticism of this cruel behavior to those much older who should know better. Adults are notorious for "playing" with simple abnormalities.

One particular allusion -- the Barbie doll of the title -- is used to emphasize the stereotype of feminine beauty and "plastic" perfection planted and actively growing in the minds of children. The perfect body, the perfect face, and the perfect look -- to many young women, the ideal of Barbie has become the quintessential example of fake female idealism.

"She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs."

The author goes a step farther, however, and shows the consequence of dissatisfaction within oneself.  Despite the fact that the girl is "strong" and "healthy" with "abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity," she feels she must apologize for her "fat nose on thick legs." In other words, since she understands she is not at the pinnacle of ornamental cultural beauty standards, she feels unacceptable. Her feelings are so deep that she judges herself homely to the degree of "apologizing" for her appearance.

"She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up."

Others blinded by manufactured standards advise the girl to be shy and modest while greeting people with a smile in order to deal with her less-than-satisfactory image."Wheedle" is interesting diction in reference to advice: the word can mean "chitchat, persuade" or even "finagle" or "deceive." All of these suggestions are offered as coping strategies for dealing with her poor self concept. And, naturally, some push her to exercise and diet to conform to the phony standards of acceptance and attractiveness.

But, evidently all feminine wiles allude her mastery as Piercy says "her good nature wore out like a fan belt." The simile is particularly disturbing as the poet applies the image of a cold, mechanical, machine part to something as human and kind as "good nature." When her broken "fan belt" cannot serve to motivate her life, the girl "stops."

The terrible result of the girl's feelings of inadequacy is then reported without emotion to the reader: "she cut off her nose and her legs." Piercy explains "she offered them up" like some sacrifice or offering as penance for the sin of her supposedly dreaded appearance. She delivers her severed body parts are a sacrament made with sorrow and with the intention of some amendment.

Piercy may want us to think the girl literally did away with her nose and legs, but it is more likely that she went under the professional knife of a plastic surgeon. Either way it killed her, physically and emotionally, to get what society demanded of her.

"In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending"

At the end of the poem, which represents the end of the girl's life, she is dutifully "displayed on satin" with synthetic "undertaker's cosmetics painted on." She is, at last, in a socially acceptable, Barbie-modeled mold. Her “turned up putty nose” represents her artificial, but perfect, self. "Putty nose" is another name for plastic surgery on a nose -- of course, this alteration may be seen as perfection to many in modern society.

Indeed, the girl "looks pretty" to her critical audience in her new, Barbie form. “To every woman a happy ending” -- ironically, she has finally reached "consummation" of perfection in the minds of those who judge a corpse by the art of plastic alteration and counterfeit presentation, whether that "corpse" is a dead woman in a casket or a fake, living Barbie want-to-be.

Could Piercy be saying society's pressures either force women to conform or effectively kill their God-given, unique images in the process? It seems a nonconformist either suffers and "dies" a spiritual death in the eyes of society or, instead, sacrifices to conform to strict societal expectations.

As is only fitting to the sarcasm presented in the poem, as they view her in her altered being, the people say “doesn’t she look pretty.”