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Barbie: A Cultural Icon For Young Girls

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Barbie is a cultural icon for young girls all over the country. Created by Mattel in 1959, the doll has received criticism for decades because the physical appearance of the doll sets unrealistic body standards for females. Barbie is scaled to be extremely thin, usually Caucasian, with blonde hair and blue eyes. An African-American Barbie doll was released in 1980, except the features of the doll are extremely similar to the Caucasian dolls, with small noses and petite lips. The un-proportional measurements of Barbie’s body are nearly impossible for a real woman to accomplish, with a 16” waist. The average American woman’s waist is 35”, so Barbie’s waist is half the waist of a healthy female. According to a scholarly article written by Helga …show more content…

The Bild Lilli was modelled after an extremely popular cartoon and was only manufactured for about ten years. Despite unpopular opinions of the doll at the annual Toy Fair in New York in 1959, the Barbie doll was welcomed into the homes of Americans later on that year. The very first Barbie doll looked exceedingly like the Bild Lilli bombshell doll in Germany, with blonde hair and blue eyes. The doll remained to look the same way for about twenty years, with small variations of facial features to follow along with the modern beauty standards at the time. In the 1980’s, the first African American doll was released following the Black Power movement of the 60’s and 70’s. The features of the doll were exactly the same as the original doll, with a petite frame, and small facial features. The African-American Barbie doll has created lots of stir among the general public over the past thirty or so years because it appeared as if the doll was just a ‘painted’ Caucasian doll. The Black dolls were exactly the same as the original doll up until 2009 when Mattel released a collection of Black Barbie’s that have typical African American features and curly, textured hair. This was the first instance of a major variation of the original Barbie dolls, with many more variations to come in the

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This insecurity may develop over time to a low self-esteem. Society makes it seem that women have to be beautiful, skinny housewives that are dependent on men. Barbie is contributing to these ideals. “Because we don’t have money for a stupid-looking boy doll when we’d both rather ask for a new Barbie outfit next Christmas.” The little girl feels pressured by not having a Ken doll, but at the same time all of the little girls would rather ask for a new outfit with accessories than a new Ken

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Barbies were initially created with the western features and characteristics which were desirable at the time: like blue eyes, blonde hair, and gentle curves. They represented the beauty standards which were considered ideal and favored by society. However, these unrealistic standards are difficult to achieve by the average woman. Similarly, Jews also do not fall into a category which represents the quintessential Jew. Jewish people have a wide variety of cultures, customs, traditions, and beliefs which may not fit into the ideal Jew represented by the Jewish faith.

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Hello friends. My name is Sam Worcester, however most people call me by my superhero name: ThinkSafe. Not many people can say that they have saved the world but I can. I have saved the world, and this is my story. Starting when I was just a regular 12 year old boy back in 1989, growing up in the great state of Arizona.

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In today’s society people want a women to have an extraordinary appearance. Marge Piercy's’ story Barbie Doll portrays the theme of how a person never feels fully perfect because of the views of society. Even though this poem was written back in 1936, we still have the same perception of how an ideal man or woman should look. In today's time, Social media is the main reason why people have these views. Girls are supposed to look a certain way to be considered attractive.

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Barbie is a doll that was introduced in 1959, she took the world by storm with her fashion and changing careers. She greatly influenced pop culture and the thoughts and beliefs of people. Barbie has been involved in many controversies over the years due to her body image and the high body expectations that she sets for young girls. She has had a significant impact on social values by conveying characteristics of female independence. Barbie has had positive and negative influences on fashion, interests and beliefs of a certain year, which continually changed throughout the decades.

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Barbie Doll was first created in 1959 and has been popular ever since. Toys are influential in kids’ development. Barbie Doll has a huge influence on young girls. Children, especially young girls, look up to Barbie doll as a role model and she is designed to represent thin, light skinned, attractive, and perfect body that has acceptance among the society. In Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll” she uses figurative languages to express the impacts of Barbie doll on younger girls.

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None of which can ever be achieve by a normal white woman. Barbie excluded people of color and weight, and is very sad reminder to young girls that their own natural bodies aren’t perfect by societies standards and what is deemed desirable to be desired by another

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So her features are quite lifelike and exquisite. The creators used the original 1959 Barbie face as a model for all of the dolls in the Fashion Model Collection, and all resemble her in the face. Their dress, hair color, and skin shade vary though and represent the best of different fashion eras and trends. This doll is designed Robert Best who has created hundreds of Barbies for various collections such as the Hollywood and Vintage lines. This Barbie also belong to another another delightful, thematic group created by Mattel called "Parisienne Sketchbook."

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Barbie is a popular young girls toy that seems harmless at first glance but can cause a lot of subconscious attitudes and thoughts. They teach girls that it is important to only focus on the outer appearance with the many different skimpy barbie outfits. Barbie's body shape is unrealistic and gives small girls the thought that the Barbie body is the “normal” body. There has been multiple other dolls that are more sexualized since barbie such as My Scene dolls and Bratz. These dolls are shown with tiny clothing, makeup and unrealistic bodies.

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The freedom of being able to change Barbie’s clothes into her various wardrobes sold gives the young children playing with her the sense of individuality. Although Barbie has brought a lot of controversy to the table within the years it has been on the shelf, her portrayal has not changed because after all she is just a doll,

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More specifically she represents the embodiment of the mainstream beauty standard (Klein). She became a very significant role in gender socialization among young girls and woman. In the first Barbie commercial ever, if you carefully scrutinize the lyrics, it says “…someday I’m going to be exactly like you, until then I know just what I’ll do, Barbie beautiful Barbie I’ll make believe I am you” these lyrics informs us that Barbie represents a dream to every little girl, how their future should look like. Barbie was able to remain popular in the conservative times of the 50’s by captivating the attention of little girls, they all aspired to look just like her. Barbie was able to uphold some of the messages that dominated that era by represents the gender roles that belong to woman, in the first Barbie commercial, you can see Barbie wearing a wedding dress, symbolizing that every girl/woman desires to become a

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Did you know that Mattel, Barbie’s manufacturing company, is releasing new Barbies? Well, both Newsela and CNN wrote articles talking about this topic. Newsela’s “Girls now have more Barbies to choose from; will they choose Barbie?” talked about how Mattel made new Barbie dolls. The article discussed how Mattel made new Barbies, all shapes, sizes, and color, so girls around the world can compare themselves to Barbies with more realistic figures.

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The average woman’s measurements, on the other hand, are about 41-34-43”(Crow- Why Barbie Is Not A Good Role Model). This quote shows that trying to have Barbie's body is not achievable, and is a health risk. Although Barbies image is unachievable many girls still strive to be that thin, this can lead to eating disorders. Imagine girls looking up to Barbie and seeing how thin she is, and so they start to feel fat and hate the way they look. They develop a fear of food because they think every time they eat they will gain weight and not be beautiful anymore, so they stop eating or if they are forced to eat they will make themselves sick afterwards, as a result they are deprived of their nutrition.

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Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” takes a sarcastic approach to backlash at society and send the reader a message about what beauty really is. In “Barbie Doll”, A Barbie doll is used to show and symbolize what society views as what a female should aspire to become “perfect”. “Barbie's unrealistic body type…busty with a tiny waist, thin thighs and long legs…is reflective of our culture's feminine ideal. Yet less than two percent of American women can ever hope to achieve such dreamy measurements.”

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But where did it all start and how did you get to this position? You’re five years old when you receive your first Barbie doll. Your innocent mind looks at the plastic figure as just a symbol of inspiration or a relatable toy used on the playground

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