Hatred of Barbie

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David Quinn
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Hatred of Barbie

Post by David Quinn » Tue Dec 20, 2005 4:55 pm

James posted this in the "In the News" thread, but I thought it was interesting enough to deserve its own thread.

Hatred of Barbie
Why little girls like to torture Barbie
By Nick Foley in London

IF you've caught your daughter mutilating her Barbie doll, microwaving her, or decapitating her, don't be disturbed - your girl is perfectly normal.

Research published yesterday reveals that as girls grow up, they come to hate Barbie so much that many admit torturing and maiming the doll. The toy has become a "hate figure" among seven to 11-year-old girls, who regard Barbie as a "babyish" symbol of their earlier childhood.

Researchers from the University of Bath questioned 100 youngsters about their attitudes to a range of branded products and found the iconic doll provoked the strongest reaction.

"When we asked the groups of junior school children about Barbie, the doll provoked rejection, hatred and violence," said Agnes Nairn, who led the study. "The meaning of Barbie went beyond an expressed antipathy; actual physical violence and torture towards the doll was repeatedly reported, quite gleefully, across age, school and gender."

Dr Nairn said: "It's as though disavowing Barbie is a rite of passage and a rejection of their past.

"The types of mutilation .. range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving."

The study also found that while boys expressed feelings of nostalgia towards Action Man, girls' attitude to Barbie was hostile.

"The girls almost always talked about having a box full of Barbies," Dr Nairn said. "So, to them, Barbie has come to symbolise excess. Barbies are not special, they are disposable, and are thrown away and rejected."
I don't believe that Dr Nairn is even close to interpreting these reactions correctly. Regarding something as not special and disposal doesn't normally lead to violent rejection. There are clearly other factors at play.

This is what I think is going on:

Barbie symbolizes womanly perfection in the minds of young girls. For years, they are able to dress her, brush her hair, place her in various situations - all the while revelling in the fantasies associated with being an attractive woman. It's a blissful girlie dream with very few demands or stresses.

However, when a girl begins to approach puberty, everything changes. What used to be an idle dream is now a very serious pursuit. The girl now has to factor her own self into the equation.

Now she is the one being judged, together with all her flaws and imperfections. Accordingly, Barbie changes from being a joyful symbol of womanly perfection to a harsh mirror which highlights the girl's flaws. Indeed, the very perfection and beauty of Barbie only serves to emphasize the girl's imperfections and ugliness. And so the girl violently pushes the Barbie away. She cannot stand the sight of her.

[edited url link for the sake of my own sanity - D.R.]

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Post by avidaloca » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:41 pm

It's a way of conquering the opposition which a lot of women do all the time.

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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:53 pm

What about boys and their toys? What kind of relationship do they have with them that makes them nostalgic about them?

I think my favorite toys as a kid were Micronauts, which were like a cybernetic race of superheroes. You could disassemble them and they had interchangable parts. I did break a lot of them, but that was mostly due to carelessness. I never got mad at my Micronauts.

Very interesting observations though about the Barbies, David.
Last edited by Matt Gregory on Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:55 pm

Barbie symbolizes womanly perfection in the minds of young girls. For years, they are able to dress her, brush her hair, place her in various situations - all the while revelling in the fantasies associated with being an attractive woman. It's a blissful girlie dream with very few demands or stresses.

However, when a girl begins to approach puberty, everything changes. What used to be an idle dream is now a very serious pursuit. The girl now has to factor her own self into the equation.
Well, we are talking about a group of 7-11 year-old girls. You might be surprised to find out that pussy-cat Barbie has simply been replaced by a more aggressive version of woman with -- of all things -- exagerrated features from the neck up instead of the neck down.

And let's not forget -- "it takes time to look this good..."

http://www.bratzpack.com/

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Matt Gregory
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Post by Matt Gregory » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:03 pm

It's kind of interesting that girls trash Barbies, but girls have always played with dolls and I've never heard of a girl trashing a baby doll. I guess since Barbie is an adult or a teenager it's okay.

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Leyla Shen
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Post by Leyla Shen » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:20 pm

I don't think you would ever have heard of a baby doll marketed and held up as the ideal, politically correct kind of woman, either.

Even the male Bratz dolls are just an accessory.

They are not targeted at boys.

"Boys" toys are often made to come apart -- as in your example. Or, designed to be used in some aggressive or intellectual manner -- as in Tonka trucks and leggos.

Action Man was not popular with my boys. Stretch Armstrong was a hit for a while, though.

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Tomas
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Post by Tomas » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:24 pm

The above replies lead me to be curious if this man from London (and the University of Bath researchers) had questioned these girls how they viewed "Ken" the male counterpart in all this? Ken the doll, seemed a bit too "Hugh Hefner" for my tastes at that time. Probably eating bottle fulls of Viagra at this stage of his life!

Hmmm, has anyone ever done an age-progression on what Ken and Barbie would look like now?

When i was about 7 or 8, my sister, Gloria Jean, would have me take part in her games of dolls. It never was my cup of tea - the whole thing of playing dolls. Just couldn't figure out, at such a tender age (formative years), where the excitement of the action was in it. Gloria, i see now, was about 11 going on 12.

Thanks David, think i'll fire off a letter in the next day or so...apologizing for destroying her doll collections!

Gloria would still have the doll collection...she went on to become a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and meet her future husband, Steve, who was a resident Doctor in the making. He has delivered over 4,300 babies at last count.

The downside? - Gloria still watches that dumb soap opera called Days Of Our Lives. So does my brother Gordon's wife, Denise. She tapes them Monday thru Friday - then watches them on Saturday...with a monster bowl of popcorn. Gloria and Denise, are a combined 100 pounds overweight - their mates???....you ask? - thin.

Steve and Gordon tho - eat the slop the women plop on their plates as they never learned to cook in their own....and they all have rather acute health woes.......What those clowns have in common? - worldly educations! A Doctorate, 2 Master's Degrees and a trained Nursing Degree......maybe i won't give her the satisfaction of licking her hand and apology...just let her flabby ass blow some wind in the blankets.

I literally ripped some to shreds, cut their hair down to "dyke" style, knifed them, lip-sticked them so much Madonna would be jealous.


-DISCLAIMER-

"Ken the doll" is in no way a conjecture mime of "Ken Solway" on Genius Forums :-)

Nuttin' perzonul?


Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971

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Dan Rowden
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Post by Dan Rowden » Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:24 pm

I don't think I'm prepared to venture an opinion about a so-called "study" of merely 100 girls from London who apparently do nasty things to their Barbies.

100 girls doesn't make a study. How many London girls own Barbies? How many love their Barbies and don't do nasty things to them? How much of an icon is Barbie in London anyway? What is the point about nostalgia - girls aren't even nostalgic about their boyfriends.

That study "smells" to me.


Dan Rowden

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In The Year 2000...

Post by Parallax » Wed Dec 21, 2005 6:22 am

Cough.

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David Quinn
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Post by David Quinn » Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:15 am

The study sample may have been small, but the results ring true for me. There have also been other studies done, with similar findings. For example:

Early Adolescents' experiences, and views of, Barbie.

One of the sections of this study nicely dovetails wth what I was saying above:
Given the controversy in the literature over the influence of Barbie dolls on girls, we asked the participants what they thought of Barbie. The general consensus was that Barbie's body is unrealistic.

- They should make a fat one.

- They are all so skinny and that's mean to fat people.

- They are all perfect. They never do anything real in all the books
[about Barbie dolls]. I think she does too much. Yeah, they are all
perfect [and] it's just too much.


- I always thought Barbie was so cool; [as] I got older, I learned
that it's impossible to be Barbie. She's been everywhere, [even]
in outer space. She's the perfect blonde. She has the perfect blue
eyes. She's like everything! If she was a real person she wouldn't
be able to walk.


Perfection was the major theme that emerged from each of the focus groups. The girls viewed Barbie as the image of perfection, and perhaps too perfect, yet she defines physical beauty.
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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh » Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:16 am

In that second article, there were some interesting comments.

I wonder if some of these kids had discussed Barbie issues as part of some classroom activity. To be honest I thought some of the answers were phrased a bit too well for the kids age - well at least I don't recall having any of the worldliness that this young bloke has. Mind you kids these days have access to all sorts of (formerly adult level) information that just wasn't available to an average kid like me in a country school in the early 70's.

One boy argued that Barbie dolls are negative role models for girls, similar to other media standards of female beauty: "I blame Barbie for the Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez craze. I also blame Barbie for the craze in implants and liposuction to become good looking. I also think that Barbie has made a demand ... for beauty salons and operations to become beautiful."

I would add that selling junk requires constant change, and entertainment had to become more and more radical and sexual so that consumers maintained interest - so the Britneys, implants etc would have happened even without Barbie type dolls, although the rate of change would have been slower. Still the kid is right, Barbie dolls do have the effect of increasing the demand for beauty/fashion related products.

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Shardrol
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Post by Shardrol » Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:30 am

When I was a kid (I'm in my 50s) I had dolls that looked like children. That was what everybody had. There were a few 'grown up' dolls but they were usually fairytale characters like Snow White.

Nowadays little girls play with Barbie dolls that look like cartoon porn stars. It's a different world. Girls as young as 3 & 4 are interested in makeup. 7-year-olds want to wear tight clothes to show off their 'thin' bodies. I see little kids all the time imitating suggestive dance moves they see in music videos, referring to their 'booties', describing people as 'hotties', & in general engaging in grotesque imitations of the vulgar sexuality that seems to be the main marketing tool of current American culture.

Mutilating Barbie dolls seems like a breath of sanity in the midst of all this.

MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi » Wed Dec 21, 2005 1:12 pm

Barbie has been around a long time. Came out when I was in third grade, I think.

Personally, I never mutilated Barbie. We did play rather sordid dramas with her and Ken and Midge, however. Barbie was always murdering Ken or Ken was murdering Barbie or Barbie and Ken were conspiring to kill Midge or some other doll. Barbie and Midge ran over Ken in Barbie's pink Corvette. Barbie and Midge had miscarriages or Ken raped Skipper.

I doubt this was unusual. I also do not think it was ritualistic killing of innocence or childhood or other such psychological stuff. I think it was psycho-sexual violence, plain snd simple. Pretty normal. Kids are not nearly as innocent as people suppose.

My own daughter never liked dolls -- period. She was given a Madam Alexander baby doll at birth that she never liked. We all expected her to be this girly girl and Rock never fit the bill. Buster liked the doll so we turned her into a boy doll and he named him BB and slept with him for years. Still has him somewhere. He never mutilated him.

Rock did have some Barbies when she was a little girl but she never liked them and she never played with them. When she was about seven, she and a couple of friends -- girls -- gathered together some Barbies and planted firecrackers in their heads and blew them up. I don't know where they got the firecrackers -- must have come from one of the other girls' houses. I didn't know anything until I heard the firecrackers and went to see what was going on. Well, it was Barbie carnage.

I think this is pretty normal for Barbie.

I know a woman about seven years younger than myself -- say, forty-six -- who threw her Barbies in the fireplace because she liked the popping of the burning plastic. Kind of like napalm in the morning.

I don't know what it is about Barbie that brings forth such violence. Just something about the bitch, I reckon.

When my kids were little, we had three garter snakes as pets. They were treated much better than Barbie. All the kids loved to watch them eat up the goldfish. They loved to see the jaws open wide to take the living fish into the mouths -- and the fangs. Then, the bulk of the fish moving through the narrow body -- probably still alive for a while.

One day, there were a thousand kids in the yard -- as usual. Rock was tired of a few of the boys. They were pulling her hair or throwing rocks or something. Suddenly, she ran into the house and grabbed the snakes. She held one in one hand and two in the other. She ran outside to the boys and held up the snakes -- "I'VE GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU!!" She looked just like the old Gripe Water label.

The boys took one look and screamed and squealed and took off running. Didn't come back for a long time. They are in their twenties now. Whenever I see them, I think of how they ran from the snakes. I doubt Rock could scare them off so easily now. They are all still friends.

Interesting topic. I think that most women can recount Barbie mutilations from childhood. I don't think it has anything to do with killing a dream or any crap like that.

Girls do enter puberty now at around age eight or something. They mature sexually much quicker than boys. Last night, Rock and I took a ten year old girl with us shopping. A girl who is a lot like Rock at that age. Kind of like a miniature adult of some kind. A mini-teenager. Very cute.

Kind of strange, in a way. She is a little girl but not a little girl. She has the precursor of a figure. No breasts yet but the hormones are starting to rage. It was only at age twelve that Roxanna with her raging hormones began to steal my car on a regular basis. She was a natural driver. No one ever taught her to drive. No one ever taught her to drive a stick shift. She just knew. She drove to West Virginia when she was twelve.

So, when I look at this other little child-woman, I am sympathetic toward her parents. This sort of girl is not likely to be a cheerleader or chorus singer or honor student. She is precocious and will be hell on wheels.

The popular misconception is that adolescent boys are hell on wheels.

That is a modern myth. Crap.

I would be mother to a thousand boys before I would be mother to one Barbie-blasting girl.

ANYTHING BUT THAT!!

Boys don't kill Barbies. Girls do.

An all prepubescent girl army would have strung up bin Laden by his balls four years ago. Going after Saddam was the pussy way out.

If you want to train killers, start with Barbie. Better than the Viet Cong.

THE HORROR. THE HORROR.

Faizi

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Diebert van Rhijn
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Post by Diebert van Rhijn » Thu Dec 22, 2005 12:06 am

Well, the first two women I asked each admitted removing all the (probably lush) hair from at least one of their barby dolls. No clear reason or motive was remembered by them.

I know I've never hurt my lonely '6 million dollar' action figure in any way ....

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Post by DHodges » Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:49 am

MKFaizi wrote:The popular misconception is that adolescent boys are hell on wheels.

That is a modern myth. Crap.

I would be mother to a thousand boys before I would be mother to one Barbie-blasting girl.
That's what I've heard from anyone who's had experience with both: girls are much harder.

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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:21 am


Get Real
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Post by Get Real » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:13 pm

David Quinn's theory is interesting, but what are we to make about the boys' violence of Barbie, the study included boys too.
The way I read it both "genders" beat on the dolls.

Are they just comming along for the ride, to be cool?

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