Wen Wang Zhongzhong
In the past every girl wanted to be her, now she must look up to every girl.
Every holiday, probably many people's circle of friends will be brushed by a "princess escape", such as Halloween just after the past.
Overnight, there were "princesses on the run that Disney doesn't want" everywhere. It doesn't matter if you don't understand this inexplicable meme, the point is to know that these people who escaped from the castle are "princesses".
Look at the bottom of the "Beautiful Girl Today Awards" label, is it possible to understand what is called "princess on the run" in an instant. / Screenshot of Weibo
Guess who in the world hates the "Disney Princess on The Run" meme?
Of course, it is the top of the princess class, and the princess in every little girl's mind is the barbie doll.
Since the world's first Barbie doll was officially launched in 1959, she has been at the top of the world's girls' toy wishlist for the past 61 years. In 2002, The Economist mentioned that the world average sold 1 Barbie doll every 2 seconds, and the average American girl aged 3 to 11 had 10 Barbie dolls, which once helped the parent company Mattel sit in the top position in the toy industry.
Some time ago, the American toy company Mattel said that Barbie doll sales increased by 29% in the third quarter of 2020, which is the largest growth quarter of Barbie in the past 20 years. Because of the special needs of the epidemic, parents in home isolation are looking for toys that do not involve screens to interact with their children.
Ask every kid at home, who wouldn't want to own a Barbie dream mansion. (Adults as I would too) / YouTube
In the darkest hours of frustration, Barbie is still the best choice to spend time with children.
The princess on the run is just a picture of a happy, and being a barbie in the world is the ultimate dream of every girl. It's just that barbie dolls that are already old people seem to have forgotten, times have changed, and there is no one here who wants to be a princess.
The abandoned Barbie doll for the second half of her life
In 1997, the spirited Barbie doll did not realize that she was about to usher in the Waterloo of her life.
That year, Danish band Aqua's "Barbie Girl" swept the world and made it a hit on major music charts, and Mattel was preparing to file a lawsuit against the song, protesting that it had caused trademark infringement against Barbie.
You can brush my hair/Undress me everywhere
Girls who own Barbie dolls know the charm of "plastic". / 《Barbie Girl》
In Barbie Girl, such lyrics that make Barbie feel "offended" abound.
In the end, mattel's lawsuit against MCA Records, which produced the songs, was dismissed in July 2002 after several court arguments. The court's advice to Mattel was to "calm down."
As the court in this case pointed out, Barbie was seen as the ideal American woman, and at the same time a promiscuous woman. Through Barbie, Mattel creates not just a toy, but a cultural icon. 'Barbie' is no longer just a symbol of a commodity, but has long since become a symbolic social symbol with a specific cultural connotation. ”
Most importantly, over the past few decades, various social critiques of Barbie have long been commonplace. "Barbie Girl" is nothing more than a "parody" (also known as a parody) of Barbie.
"Saturday Night Live", which is loved by the American people, does not joke about Barbie. / SNL
In Western pop culture, Barbie is not the first time it has been the target of parody. Or rather, Barbie has long since become a giant walking arrow target, and there are countless people who "shoot" at her.
At the beginning of the millennium, "Jay Leno's Tonight Show" spoofed a "Barbie Lab" show, mocking how Barbie often had a career of "catching up with the times or, in this case, catching up with the problems of today's society."
After entering the new century, Barbie dolls began to face market weakness and aesthetic deformity controversy in the US market. The exemplary object that children loved in the past has become the sinner that thousands of people refer to.
Accusations that Barbie's overly unreal image can make children feel inferior, and she is only a microcosm of the patriarchal aesthetic in white-dominated society. Moms worry that Barbie's consumerist attitude will trap their children in the trap of "beauty makes you succeed," a value that has been called into question against the backdrop of the rise of feminism.
In the memes that foreign netizens love to use, Barbie often plays the role of some annoying stupid beauty.
"Barbie represents everything we don't want to be but are asked to be." Gloria Steinem, a prominent American feminist, said.
One of the most widespread criticisms of Barbie is her unrealistic "devilish figure." If a real human woman wants to be a "barbie on earth," she would have to be 7 feet 2 inches tall (about 2.18 meters), weigh 115 to 130 pounds (about 50-60 kilograms), have a hip circumference of 30 to 36 inches, a waist circumference of 18 to 23 inches, and a chest circumference of 38 to 48 inches.
According to this ratio, the ultra-thin 6-inch ankles of the real Barbie girl will not be able to support her torso and head, and will have to crawl on all fours.
A 2006 article published in the journal Developmental Psychology found that girls who touched Barbie were more likely to develop body anxiety and may even develop anorexia than other dolls. Barbie, released in the 1960s, came with a "dietary manual" that offered only one piece of advice — "don't eat."
Such a simple and rude misleading informational suggestion I can list a hundred, for example – don't get fat!
A group called Barbie Liberation said Barbie's more lethal point was that she was teaching girls to be pretty more important than smart.
Mattel's book "Barbie Can Also Be a Programmer" launched by Mattel in 2014 was found by netizens as an intern barbie who was a newcomer to the workplace in the plot, who regarded male colleagues who were also workers as tool people, "please" the other party to help write programming, and finally handed over as his own independent completion of the final report.
There is no doubt that this terrible plot infuriates the real "programmers". Some female programmers simply made a web game by themselves, turning the plot into "Barbie thought of a plan, the male classmate asked her if she wanted to help, Barbie said 'OK thank you, but the core game physics part is more difficult, or by the math genius I personally completed it'".
The charm of working women lies in their profession, not in women. / pingwest
Barbie dolls that walk off the altar become more and more unlikable to the girls.
The University of Bath in the United Kingdom once published a study showing that girls usually go through a stage of hating Barbie. They would "execute" Barbie, dismember her and destroy her, and sometimes even put Barbie in the microwave and destroy her in various ways.
The denial of Barbie, for the girls, becomes a ritual of denying their past. For better or worse, Barbie somehow reflects the society's preconceived notions and expectations of the "Barbie Girls."
In the past, every girl wanted to be Barbie, and now Barbie must look up to every girl.
Save Barbie
"Now, can you stop discussing my figure?"
In 2016, Barbie appeared on the cover of Time magazine and shouted her heart out. Barbie, who appeared on stage this time, looks more intimate and moving than ever before, more like a vivid new-age woman.
This Barbie has a small belly, and her body is stronger and healthier, and she exudes a sense of strength and beauty. / 《TIME》
Barbie is no longer the delicate beauty she once was. This year Barbie introduced three new body types – petite, tall and curvy. The plump barbie is the cover model for this issue of Time magazine.
After 2010, Barbie's image design has undergone tremendous changes, no longer just the doll with a beautiful head and an empty head.
In 2015, Barbie's "Fashionistas" series, which enriched Barbie's skin tone and hair, also released a flat-footed doll to alleviate people's concerns about the applicability of Barbie's body in real life.
In 2020's latest "Fashionista" series, Mattel is still committed to discovering diversity in Barbie. / Mattel
That same year, Mattel made another big shift, calling all Barbie dolls "Barbie" or "Ken" (Barbie's boyfriend), making "Barbie" a generic reference. Not just the name, these inclusive efforts are directly attributed to Barbie.
In late 2016, Mattel said that 36% of its global sales of dolls were inclusive, and that number would only be higher in the future. Over the years, Mattel has been making Barbie more "politically correct." They've reduced Barbie's bust, added 7 skin tones, 18 pupil colors, 24 new hairstyles, and are constantly introducing new looks so that every girl can find the one like herself in countless Barbie.
Barbie is trying to make herself a role model for girls in the new era.
Of course, Mattel, a fashionable thing like Vlog, has not missed, and also launched Barbie vlog on YouTube to communicate directly with every fan in front of the screen. / YouTube
Launched in 2018, Mattel established a series of courses to address girls' dream divides— in other words, addressing girls' self-limiting beliefs.
At the same time, Mattel is also committed to adding real-life female models to the Barbie universe. In the Barbie Sheroes series, which was first released in 2015, and the Barbie Inspiring Women series released in 2018, many dolls of real-life excellent women were introduced.
Among the female role models who have changed the world in real life, Mattel hopes that they can also break through the barbie universe.
As one of the well-known female photographers in China, Chen Man also owns a Barbie doll based on her. / Mattel
In this series, female black actress Zendaya's Barbie doll used her attire at the 2015 Academy Awards. She says she couldn't find a Barbie like her when she was a kid, and she's glad to see times change.
Whether it is Barbie's changes in the past decade or Barbie's more than sixty years of life, Barbie historians Gerber and Stone, as well as Barbie collector Justice, believe that Barbie's original intention has not changed.
When Barbie's founder Ruth Handler made Barbie to sell, Mattel today makes Barbie more inclusive and can be sold better.
In 1959, the first Barbie doll was exhibited at the American Toy Fair in New York City.
"She created a global mark, and the reason you don't do it is because you think about the feminist movement and she only cares about business."
At the end of the day, "it's a company that makes products, and their products just happen to be toys."
The earliest cultural icons
Whether brilliant or lonely, there is no doubt that Barbie dolls are definitely the idols that have always stood at the top of global culture.
Like the Statue of Liberty, Uncle Sam, american Gothic paintings, and bison nickels, barbie dolls are one of the five symbols of American culture.
Even the best scholars of all generations may not be able to give a definitive answer to what "beauty" is. But for what a "beautiful woman" is, barbie dolls as a cultural symbol have constructed an exact ideal shape for the world.
Delicate face, slender limbs, smooth white skin and every inch of the body being gazed at... Barbie dolls, which integrate all women's "gold medal standards", have strict requirements for all aspects of body hair.
For example, the "death Barbie powder" that everyone is familiar with has become the so-called standard for testing beauty.
Under the deformed concept that Barbie preaches, it is difficult to see her as just a doll accompanying children. Barbie, on the contrary, is an imaginary of a future adult woman, a model, a target for girls, and a "doll I can be doll" (a doll I can be).
Barbie has the power to manipulate women's perceptions of what "feminine beauty" is and what is "ideal" from a young age, before she screws things up.
In the early days of Barbie, she was also the most avant-garde rebel.
This stylish girl with a beautiful posture is based on a sex doll named Bild Lilli doll from Germany.
That's right, the earliest versions of Barbie dolls did look like this on the far right. Some people may wonder if this is not called "plagiarism"? Later, after Barbie became popular, he directly bought the Bild Lilli doll, and everyone was free to testify.
"Mother of Barbie dolls" Ruth Handler used this sexy doll that is not hooked up with children's toys as a source of inspiration to create a brand new doll, named after her daughter Barbie.
When Barbie was first unveiled at the New York Toy Show in 1959, Handler was even kicked out of the venue by male competitors at the time, who mocked her as "no one wants to play with a doll with breasts."
"A girl can become whoever she wants by playing Barbie, which means that the girl also has the right to choose." Handler's insistence gave the girls the right to choose. And she herself, more or less, represents the true spirit of Barbie.
A reporter once asked Ruth Handler why she could prosper for a long time, and Handler playfully replied, "Maybe because I'm a marketing genius!" ”
The Barbie Digital Camera is Mattel's first digital camera for children. During the development phase of the product, they invite some children to try it out and observe their reactions to think about how the product should be designed.
"We thought girls wanted to be models, but we found that they wanted to be photographers." Designer Kelly said the discovery made her cry with excitement and completely changed their minds. "The photo itself is not important, what is really important is to give the right to take pictures to the girls and make them inventors."
By putting the right to choose in the hands of girls, they will create a better world and a future.
That year Beyoncé performed "Run the World" at the Super Bowl, singing "Who Makes the World Work?" It's Us Girls", female power has taken to one of the most eye-catching stages in the world.
Let the world know how powerful women are. / Beyonce Instagram
Today we still like blonde dolls, not necessarily Princess Barbie, but also elsa, the queen of ice and snow.
The cold never bothers us, because we will eventually become our own queen.
We still need Barbie because we need to remind ourselves all the time: change the Barbie doll that used to be, and don't become that Barbie doll.
Resources
[1] Barbie's Got a New Body | TIME
[2] She's a Barbie girl, in a new world | Mashable
[3] ‘Babyish’ Barbie under attack from little girls, study shows | the University of Bath
[4] Are Barbie Dolls Really That Bad? | Neuroscience
[5] Dying to be Barbie | rehabs
[6] The Barbie doll makes its debut | HISTORY
[7] 60 years of Barbie evolution: Not just princesses, TA is becoming more diverse, inclusive | All-media faction
[8] The twists and turns of a Barbie game | Touch.com
[9] From QQ Show to Taobao Life: How Do We Dress Girls For Granted? | News Lab
[10] The entrepreneurial path of the "Mother of Barbie" | The Age of The Passing City
[11] How Barbie, the idol of the toy world, grew old | Curiosity Daily
[12] Barbie: From "perfect" to "imperfect" | Triad Life Weekly
[13] Trademark Protection and Freedom of Artistic Expression: Commenting on the "Barbie" Toy Trademark Infringement Dispute | Song Huixian