Barbie travels to the internet....

This past weekend, I traveled home to babysit and found myself visiting the Barbie world in a different way other than the tangible doll. And what I mean is the aspect of how Barbie has become part of the internet world. In 1996 Mattel launched http://www.barbie.com/ as their official Barbie website. I visited this website with the children I babysat with and it really was a great addition to my Barbie experience. Travelers to website can customize their Barbie based on different hair, eye, make-up, and fashion combinations. There are also interactive games, storybooks about Barbie and her friends, and lots of other fun activities. The website is continually updated and allows all the fans of Barbie to be continually connected to one of their favorite dolls. And even though I am in college, I found the website to be a fun place to visit…in other words a great procrastination tool for those nights when I really don’t want to crack open any books.

Barbie is not Bad

For this week’s blog, I decided to look into some of the aspects of why many people find Barbie to have negative impact on children. So to start I think I will look at what researchers claim to be the fault of Barbie. Vicki Zaitz a child therapist and licensed clinical social worker stated claims that “Barbie reinforces the idea that all bodies look the same, that there is one perfect way to look. And if you don’t look that way, there is something wrong with you.” This image that young girls look up leaves room for debate that girls are pressured to strive for unrealistic body types. Some claim that girls today as young as 8 years old are already dieting and trying to achieve the body types that the media has recognized as acceptable. However, although I agree that the media has forced some negative implications on body image among girls at a young age, I do not think that you can consider Barbie a leading factor in this debate. I will admit Barbie used to be portrayed solely as America’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed sweetheart standing only 11 ½ inches tall, I do not agree with the fact that Barbie can force girls into wanting to change their own body image. Looking at other dolls, they too in fact have a general body type that is consistent, while their looks change through their clothes and make-up as well as Barbie. I think Mattel is taking great steps in trying to portray Barbie as a better image for young girls. They are now changing the appearance to accommodate the different aspects of different cultures and races. This I believe will allow debates to be lessened in regards to Barbie as being bad for young girls. I think the most important think that Barbie still consistently portrays is the idea of the girl population in general to be able to accomplish anything they put their mind to. In the past women were not able to hold certain jobs, but it is clear that we are just as capable as men are within the workforce. And I think Barbie continually allows little girls to, at a young age, formulate different dreams and wishes inside their head as to what they want to become in the future. I don’t think we are looking at what Barbie looks like anymore, but what she can do, and in the end what we can do!

As I read through some of the history of Barbie, I came across this little paragraph on the Barbie Collector Website: “It all started when Ruth Handler noticed her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls and imagining them in grown up roles. Ruth realized that dolls on the market at the time were all baby dolls, and that there was a need for a doll that would inspire little girls to think about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Thus the idea for Barbie doll, the teenage fashion model, was born. Ruth named the doll Barbie, after her daughter – and the rest is history.” This quote made me think about how little girls really do look at Barbie and the accomplishments she has occurred in her pretend world, could someday imitate what we expect of ourselves to accomplish. Two Barbies immediately came to mind that made all of this talk about future careers really make sense: Astronaut Barbie and the Anne Klein Barbie. One Christmas morning when I was about ten and my sister was eleven, we both received what would become of all-time favorite Barbie from Santa. Krissy unwrapped the special edition Astronaut Barbie, and I unwrapped the Anne Klein Barbie. Now it may seem that just because we were given a certain Barbie that does not mean that that would be our future career choice. But I can say that it does make sense that my sister is now studying Aerospace engineering and hoping some day to become an astronaut or at least design spacecrafts for NASA. And for me, I am studying business and entrepreneurship in hopes that someday I will become the founder of my own business. I can’t say that Barbie influenced where my sister and I would pursue our interests, but I can say that looking back, I do understand now why I may not picked my Teacher Barbie or Doctor Barbie to play with more than I did my business looking Barbie. It may be a far fetched theory, but I think that the Barbie that one considers as their favorite when they are a little girl, could showcase a certain career interest that could be part of that same girls future. On a lighter note, this assumption could hold to be very wrong, because in fact that would mean that my little sister will end up being a famous singer…and by the sound of her singing voice it looks as though this could never happen. However, maybe that just means that her future career is something that Barbie still needs to accomplish as well.