Booby trap
I’ve always had a special aversion to Barbie dolls. Even when I was little, and not yet willing or able to judge toys on their socio-economic and politically sexual merits, I wanted nothing to do with those long-legged grinning things.
When I’d go to friends’ houses and they’d ask, all guileless anticipation and rhetorical, hey, wanna play Barbies? my heart would sink. Oddly enough, though, each time it played out the same.
After having changed Barbie five or six times (but never the shoes; a skill I still haven’t mastered), called Ken and made dinner twice, my friend’s imagination would come to a standstill. And soon enough, the desire to hurt Barbie would kick in at last.
She might fall from the roof, drown in the pool or get her head stuck in the oven — long legs flailing and breaking all the china – she might get into a terrible car accident or find Skipper with Ken in the van. She might… oh, there was no end to the possibilities.
And even though playing Barbies always ended up this way, I remember being surprised each time by the dark pleasure my friends took in the torture – presuming from their monstrous collection and room full of accessories that they had a deep affection for her/them.
Their love, it turned out, was all pretend.
When my daughter, AJ, was little I’d vowed never to buy her a Barbie. And never did. But friends and relatives proved an impossible breed. By the time she was five, AJ had at least 7 dolls, 40 outfits + shoes (fuck!), a house, car, caravan… Pink pink pink, grin grin grin.
And though it was very tempting (especially after spending 4 hours assembling the damn Winnebago), I never suggested to my girl that we inflict unspeakable pain and suffering on the dolls.
I didn’t need to. She began slowly on her own: cutting the hair and dying it purple, painting tattoos on the bodies. But the real turning point came the day when her brother took to pulling off the Barbie heads, and tossing them into the toilet.
He was laughing too loud all on his own, so my daughter zoomed into the bathroom to see what was what. She came in yelling, Lucy style, so he panicked, grabbed the plunger and tried to pump away his crime.
–What are doing!?
–(pump pump) Nuttin.
–Is that my Barbie doll?
–No. (pump pump)
–Yes it is.
–No, just da head.
–You killed her.
–No, just da head.
–Take it out.
–(pump pump)
–Now!
–(hands her the dripping head)
–So you just pulled it off and threw it in there?
–No.
–Yes you did.
–Ok.
–Why?
–Heh heh.
She looks at the him, looks at the head, smiles then tosses it back into the toilet: Flush! Flush! … Wooo! Look at her go!
Giddy as two chimpanzees. And so it continued.
Of course I’d always attributed this delinquent behaviour to an irreparable genetic flaw in me, my friends and my offspring, and could never entirely define what it was about Barbies that I find so irksome. Then, in this month’s Harper’s, I came across this:
From an ongoing study of brand identification among seven-to eleven-year-olds, by researchers at the University of Bath School of Management.
The most striking thing about the discourse that surrounded Barbie was the rejection, hatred and violence that the doll provoked. Barbie evoked practically no positive sentiments – even among seven-year-old girls.
One interpretation of this perplexing finding may be that although Barbie masquerades as a person, she actually exists in multiple selves. The children never talked of one single, special Barbie. She was always referred to in the plural. Moreover, accounts of Barbie ownership always implied excess – too many Barbies. Most children had not only more than one Barbie, but a box of Barbies; and not just a box but a very large box.
Barbie is hated because she is babyish; she is hated because she is unfashionable; she is hated because she is plastic; she is hated because she is a feminine icon.
But reactions to Barbie went beyond an expressed antipathy. Actual physical violence toward the doll was repeatedly reported (gleefully) across age, school and gender. […] The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning and microwaving.
Even if this is somewhat reassuring, in a brings-up-a-whole-new-set-of-concerns way, it still doesn’t satisfactorily explain what it is about Barbie that makes you want to hurt her, over and over and over again. And why, if the women buying them for their daughters and nieces, etc. once felt that way too, they choose to offer up the object of their youthful loathing for (gleeful) sacrifice – with a smile on their face, and goofy with rewritten nostalgia.
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Comment
- Can’t believe no one has commented on this loaded topic yet. I hadn’t thought too much about Barbies, but after reading this I began to ponder and take inventory of all the Barbie references in my inner index.
First there’s the classis Barbie joke, “If Barbie’s so popular, why do we have to buy her friends?”
My only real memory of playing with Barbie was when my friend Randi Burns (God, think about that name!) and I got in big trouble when her mom came upon us trying to mate naked Barbie and ken dolls. Our mothers had a long heated talk, each certain the other’s child was a pervert, corrupting her innocent lamb, and for a while we weren’t allowed to play together.
Thing about Barbie is that she’s not at all lovable like the baby dolls who came before her. She’s an unapologetic sex goddess, and draws all the wrath of her lesser sisters who have flatter chests, shorter legs and less prominent cheekbones, not to mention smaller clothing allowances. She’s just so damn perky and smug, no wonder we love to hate her and see her get her comeuppance. Kind of like a voodoo doll effigy of all the Paris Hilton types in our lives.
Men and boys can see her as the woman who would laugh at them if they asked her out. Girls see her as the bitch who runs off with their boyfriends and husbands. She gets what she deserves, toilet plunger and all.
We could postulate that it’s fear and self-loathing of our feminine side, but I don’t want to go there. My feminine side does not resemble Barbie, no matter what anyone says.
Blood lust is not reserved exclusively for Barbies though. Many is the time I looked out my window and saw G.I. Joe dolls hanging from the eaves like a nightmare from “Apocalypse Now”. My brother and his friends took great delight in torturing and mutilating them in countless ways.
To my knowledge none of them grew up to be serial killers. Perhaps it was healthy rage against the muscle-bound bullies who tormented them on the playground. Maybe they got it out of their systems courtesy of the Mattell Toy Company.
— wizmo Apr 2, 9:43pm # - I think you’ve hit on something in the fact that Barbie is a grown-up, and not a baby to be cared for or a reasonable facsimile of a kid, like Raggedy Annes or the Cabbage Patch freaks.
The animosity may come from the fact that she is made to seem too much in control, living a ready-made life, with limited room for little girls to impose their own terms or shape the game to their imagination.
Maybe they should launch a line of working class Barbies, with only two outfits, a hotplate and a bus pass.
— gail Apr 3, 1:19pm # - Interesting about Barbie. I had the same reaction as you, ie I had decided my two daughters would never get one from me. But they received one each one Christmas, at the Company’s Xmas Party. The Company being The Dominion Stores, where my husband worked. So… not being one for negativism, I decided to go with the flow, and started making little dresses for Barbie, all kinds, and ensembles, romper suits, etc. Then knitted little sweaters and such, hats, leggings. I had the time of my life. I even made wedding dresses, one white, one pale pink. Yes, I love pink.
Anyway, when the two girls stopped playing with the dolls, as all girls must grow up, I put an add in the paper, to sell the whole lot of clothes. One woman came, with her daughter, took a look at the lot, asked how much I was asking, and grabbed them so fast I regretted not having asked for more.
I hope this little girl was happy with my creations.My daughters talk about them sometimes, and now they say they thought they were fantastic. Better late than never.
— Michèle Parrot Mrs. Apr 3, 8:00pm # - I will never forget the look of concern and fear on my mother’s face when she pulled my barbies out of the closet. They were covered in purple stains from the crayons I had used to draw bruises on their arms and legs, and judging from the state of their hair and clothing, they had been subjected to numerous tortures. She grew silent, pressed her lips, and took my two little victims out to the trash.
— schmutzie Apr 4, 4:34pm # - interesting article. before we began to maim our barbies we usually simulated sex activity between barbie and ken, then when that got boring the hurting began.
— asia Apr 4, 11:02pm # - Didn’t Margaret Atwood write an essay about her daughter mutilating a Barbie? She and her husband didn’t want to get the daughter one, but eventually gave in, and then they saw the doll bouncing down the stairs, covered in purple marker and with its hair cut off…something like that.
— Amy Apr 7, 7:24pm # - My parents made the conscious decision to let no dolls, Barbie or otherwise, into our home. Instead, my father, a devout mathematician, raised my brother and I on Legos.
In any case, I was thinking that maybe the violence is a manifestation of an underlying realisation by girls, even very young girls, that this is what they’re expected to become: flat-bellied, elaborately coiffed, and plastic. The same would go for boys and GI Joes. After all, the fact of these explicitly gendered toys makes it clear that this is gender education at play.
And what must the little girl with the 10 Barbie dolls, all blonde, blue eyed, and pinked lipped, think of her own “natural tan”, her exuberant nappiness, and her “exotic” eyes?
In fairness, the toy industry seems to be manufacturing multicultural plastic now, but it’s disturbing, anyway.
— fathima Apr 11, 1:56am # - In fairness, the toy industry seems to be manufacturing multicultural plastic now, but it’s disturbing, anyway.
Neat! Just like the fashion industry.
— gail Apr 11, 9:02am # - Nowadays, you can hire a magician to come to your kid’s birthday party, or, you can hire “Living Barbie.” LB pulls up to your home in a Mustang convertable along with an escort. Little girls at the party are allowed to comb and brush her hair and talk to her about her “life” as a doll. Obviously this gig is only for long-legged blonde women, but it is as creepy as it gets. Each girl at the party leaves with an autograph picture and a Barbie doll. It is as creepy as it gets.
(As a little girl with the name “Barbie,” I hated those goddamn dolls.)
— barbara Apr 14, 12:54am # - I guess as a goody bag gift Barbie then signs a copy of the movie “Pretty Woman.”
— barbara Apr 14, 12:56am # - That’s beyond creepy. And what do you want to bet that Living Barbie moonlights as a stripper?
— gail Apr 14, 8:43am # - Just a strange coincidence that this was in our paper yesterday.
http//www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/stage/chi-0604130307apr14,1,6808846.story?coll=chi-ent_theater-hed
— barbara Apr 15, 2:38pm # - Found this article on the Mind Hacks blog today about a psychology study done on Barbie’s effects: What Barbie does for a little girl’s body image (http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2006/04/post_1.php).
In my experience these types of articles can be paint-drying dull or pretty interesting. Thankfully, this one falls into the latter category.
The most interesting part of the survey was the disinct phases children go through in their relationship with Barbie. The money quote:
“The average 3- to 10-year-old girl in the U.S. owns eight Barbies. Only one percent of this group owns no Barbies. And every girl seems to go through similar stages with her Barbies—first, adoration, next, ambivalence, and finally, rejection. By the time they’re in middle school, most girls have either thrown out their Barbies or cut off their hair and amputated multiple limbs. These aren’t just casual observations—a 2004 study observed that while young girls identify with Barbie, 10- to 14-year-olds have distanced themselves from Barbie.”
— James Sherrett Apr 21, 7:27pm #
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