Honestly, this picture is hard for me to look at, and even more difficult to react to. I don't know if I have words to describe how I feel about this. For me this image is upsetting and annoying. My body gets tense when I look at it, and suddenly I notice all of my imperfections. My waist is not itty-bitty, I do not have a slender face and thin arms. I am not barbie! Clearly the woman holding barbie is beautiful, but because our society has harsh standards, she could be perfected. Why can't we celebrate differences? Why do we believe that in order to be pretty we must also follow STEREOTYPES. So yes, white may be "normal" but to be a "model" white person, especially woman, you it seems like you must be "Barbie"
So what does this say about our culture? I believe that this demonstrates how quickly our culture impresses STEREOTYPES upon us. A Barbie is a child's toy, but if a child grows up loving barbie, they will find that someday they want to be like Barbie. It's kind of like subconscious preparation for society's standards. We find ourselves striving to be "Barbie" in every aspect of our lives, especially white people. We want to have the best jobs, the best house, the best body, the best everything and we are not satisfied until we believe we have reached "Barbie Perfection"
This issue of women being set up to fail from an extremely young age from the Barbie "role model" is one that has always upset me deeply. This image is one that I have never seen before and I agree with you, it is really difficult to look at. I like that you bring in jobs, and all of the material things that Barbie promotes because that is over half of her influence on our culture, especially our children. It is completely unfair for young girls to aspire to such an unrealistic woman and lifestyle. Good work on bodies!
ReplyDeleteLooking at this picture, it is amazing how they illustrated barbie's PERFECT characteristics onto a modern woman's body. When I look at this picture I do not see anything flawless of the woman or Barbie, but the comparison of something realistic versus an illusion, is the flaw we make on what we consider is beautiful and what is not. I remember reading something like this a long time ago in some magazine where they said if Barbie was ever a real person, she will not live because her body is not correctly proportionate and correlated in height and body measurements. I remember the article stated that Barbie's waist/thorax area would not support her upper body weight due to the size of her (bigger than normal average human) head and breast. Her feet is too small for her body mass and her waist is too tiny to hold together all her organs etc etc etc... Your observation is amazing and I like what you said about how you felt when you looked at this picture because I thought of the same thing when I saw it too. Modern women nowadays, we come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and forms. We are not the ideal WHITE pretty Barbie we use to know as kids and I realise that now I am older as well I see more different color shades of barbies!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see the actual proportions that the Barbie doll's characteristics actually represent on a human. The woman in the picture looks perfectly normal if you take away the dotted lines, and if she were trimmed in that way it would be horrifically unrealistic, and in all honesty it would likely be hideously grotesque. But that doesn't change how people react to these social norms. Thin waist lines however are easily deceiving by the size of a woman's bust and hips though, and the ratio of the three is really what men are programmed to look for (Ridley, "The Red Queen"). It's an interesting construction however, and definitely shows us what parts mean a lot to us in modern society.
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