Barbie
Since the beginning of time, toys have often been an indicator of the way a society behaves, and how they interact with their children. For example, in ancient Greece, artifacts recovered there testify that children were simply not given toys to play with as in the modern world. The cruel ritual of leaving a sick child on a hillside for dead, seems to indicate a lack of attention to the young (Lord 16). The same is true of today’s society. As you can see with the number of toy stores in our society, we find toys of great value to our lives and enjoy giving them to children as gifts. Ask just about any young girl what she wants for Christmas and you’ll undoubtedly get the same answer: “A Barbie.” But what exactly has caused this baby boomer Barbie craze, and how did the entire world get so caught up in it? The answer lies in Ruth Handler’s vision for the first children’s adult doll. Mrs. Handler’s eleven and one-half-inch chunk of plastic began causing problems even before it’s public debut in 1959, yet has managed to become one of America’s favorite dolls.
Ruth Handler and her two young children, Barbara and Ken, were merely sightseeing in Lucerne, Switzerland, when Mrs. Handler first saw the doll she herself had been trying to create (Lord 29). In the window of a small gift shop was an eleven and one-half-inch tall plastic doll with a slender woman’s body and a long blond ponytail. Her name was Lilli (“Bad Girl” 1). She had been created from a cartoon character in a West German tabloid similar to the National Inquirer (Lord 8). Dressed provocatively, and with a seductive look in her eye, Lilli had become a “popular pornographic gag gift for men” (“Bad Girl” 1). Excited to see her long-time idea a reality, Mrs. Handler bought three of the dolls and hurried home to begin work on her own doll (“Bad Girl” 2). It was 1956, and within three years, Mattel Creations began marketing the “teenage fashion model” as “a new kind of doll from real life” (Tosa 30). The new doll, deemed “Barbie”, was named after her own daughter Barbara, who’s many years of play with paper dolls had actually inspired her to begin designing the three-dimensional adult doll (Lord 30).
Though Mrs. Handler’s version of the doll was not as racy or alluring as Lilli, her imitation of the “German streetwalker” would come back to haunt her many years later (”Bad ...
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...body and a new focus, she has plans to become even more spectacular with many new adventures and many new friends. Barbie’s new look includes a wider waist, smaller hips, a less “torpedo-like” bust, and flat rather than pointy-toed feet (“Bad Girl” 3). She is also playing an active role in new research in prosthetics. Jane Bahor, a woman who makes replacement body parts, had experimented with the plastic knee joints in Barbie’s legs. She has found that they work well as prosthetic fingers for her patients because they “are more realistic-looking and useful”. So far, Bahor has provided the replacement joints for more than a dozen of her patients and has been extremely successful in her studies (“Bad Girl” 27).
As Barbie gets ready to turn the big 4-2, it is unreal to think that she has completed her last makeover. No doubt that as time changes and people’s attitudes towards life change, this timely doll will also be forced to adjust to the needs of society. With more than 75 successful careers, her own official website, and a namesake magazine, this little doll has become more than a child’s plaything. Whether we love her or hate her, she will always be a part of us all.
“If Barbie was designed by a man, suddenly a lot of things made sense to me,” says Emily Prager in her essay “Our Barbies, Ourselves” (Prager 354). Prager’s purpose for writing this essay is to explain the history of Barbie and how the doll itself has influenced and continue to influence our society today. Prager is appealing to the average girl, to those who can relate to the way she felt growing up with Barbie seen as the ideal woman. Emily Prager uses a constant shift between a formal and informal tone to effectively communicate her ideas that we view women today based upon the unrealistic expectations set forth by Barbie. By adopting this strategy she avoids making readers feel attacked and therefore
In Marge Piercy’s, “Barbie Doll,” we see the effect that society has on the expectations of women. A woman, like the girl described in ‘Barbie Doll’, should be perfect. She should know how to cook and clean, but most importantly be attractive according to the impossible stereotypes of womanly beauty. Many women in today’s society are compared to the unrealistic life and form of the doll. The doll, throughout many years, has transformed itself from a popular toy to a role model for actual women. The extremes to which women take this role model are implicated in this short, yet truthful poem.
Every woman grows up knowing that they one day want to be beautiful. In Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” she gives an in depth look at what negative effects the concept of beauty can have on an individual. From infancy to a full grown adult woman, beauty has been a way of thinking and lifestyle. As a little girl you are given petite shaped, blonde, blue eyed dolls. While boys are given brawny soldiers and mechanical toys.
Piercy, Marge. "Barbie doll." Portable Legacies. Ed. Jan Zlotnik Schmidth and Lynne Crockette. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 589. Print.
The role of Barbie in her many careers led me to think that they could do anything they put their mind to. Barbie has over 120 jobs some of them being a nurse, a veterinarian, a rockstar, plus she ran for president in 2008. “Barbie has always represented the fact that women have choices”- Ruth Handler. (45) Barbie showed me that even I could be dominant in male jobs including astronaut, surgeons, and baseball players. Barbie has taught me that I have a choice to make when it comes to my career and that we can’t be limited or held back to jobs that have been portrayed by men only. Ruth Handler believes that “Barbie was all about choices and being able to remain feminine while succeeding in a man's world.” (43) Role-playing with my dolls in different careers helped me to see what job my personality best fit
The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller. It is staged in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. It takes place during the colonial period or puritanism. Arthur Miller's plays generally talk about social issues and emphasize the position of an individual in a social dilemma, or an individual at the mercy of society. In this case, the play shows the description of how intolerance and hysteria can intervene and tear a community apart. Even though it is written with archaic language, it is easy to follow through the historical context and stage directions. It helps readers understand the culture and the way of thinking in those days. The deception, reputation, and hysteria are the three main themes in the Crucible that are also present in today’s society.
In final analysis, The Crucible is a story that Arthur Miller used to provoke the minds of American people in the 1950’s. Its use of American mannerism and problems reach out to the reader and makes them question the world around them. This play and many other works of Arthur Miller, focus on the idea of the American dream, government interference on how people perceive the world, and the human conscience. Coming from a home that fell apart because of the Depression, yet still working up to the fame he acquire; his life has truly been a inspiration to for his works, and his style.
The Crucible’s literary elements where chosen for specific reason as they have different effects on the story and on the audience. Therefore, changing the time, place, audience or language of the play modifies it considerably and consequently alters the context, the meaning and the aim of the story.
In the beginning of “Barbie Doll”, pleasurable and unpleasurable imagery is given so that the reader can see the extremes girls go through to be considered perfect.
The standard argument against abortion rests on the claim that the fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life (Thompson, 1971). Judith Jarvis Thomson shows why this standard argument against abortion is a somewhat inadequate account of the morality of abortion. She argues for the conclusion that abortion is sometimes permissible. She begins the essay by pointing out on whether or not the fetus is a person. If fetuses are persons then abortions must be impermissible, and that if fetuses are not persons then abortions must be permissible.
Stone, Tanya Lee. The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us. New York: Penguin Group, 2010. Print.
In the 21st century, the range of Barbie’s available is higher than its ever been before in previous years. As popular cultures throughout the decades alter with societies acts, it, in turn, causes Barbie to change. The Barbie doll was introduced in 1959 by a woman named Ruth Handler. The figure has been an influence on fashion, body image and a female’s stance in society. The Barbie is no longer just a toy but used as role models for young children. With a range of body types, skin tones, eye colors and hair styles available, Barbie is still popular after all the years its been on the market. Barbie was said to be unrealistic and not a good toy for children to play with as it was promoting and creating a false image of body ‘standards’. However, over time in recent years, Barbie has become accustomed, modifying dramatically not only physically but also the way it is depicted socially.
It may seem trivial and go unnoticed to most, but by assigning Barbie a real career, people are able to identify with and recognize her. The marketers also provide Barbie with a life other than modeling, such as friends and a home. The Ken doll, which is commonly known as Barbie’s boyfriend, makes her appear more real to the audience. Girls are able to identify with the idea of a boyfriend, which makes the notion of Barbie seem more realistic and desirable. The same idea is applied to the many friends Barbie has been accompanied by over the years. Lastly, and perhaps most famously, Barbie, like almost all of the girls who play with her, have a home. The Barbie Dream House is just another clever way her marketing team has presented her to society as a real person. Humanizing Barbie, and portraying her in such a manner makes her more attractive to potential buyers. The girls who engage in play with dolls do not want merely a doll; they desire something they can relate to and envision in the real world. Imaginative play is a large portion of childhood, and the ability for children to posses a doll like Barbie , who represents a real person in society, is extremely valuable. The use of social constructionism in the marketing of products such as Barbie is both brilliant and effective.
Frederick Chopin grew up in a small town in Poland. His mother was very adamant that he develop musical abilities as a young child. At only six years old Chopin began playing as well as composing music. In 1822 Frederick had to switch teachers because his current teacher felt incapable of teaching him. When he was sixteen he conducted his first concert, surpassing several teachers
As Dr. Rae eluded to in his lecture, the biblical definition of marriage found in Genesis chapters one and two, is when one man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to one woman, becoming one flesh. A hermeneutical study of Genesis 1 and 2 along with the rest of Scripture, will show that it is God’s intention for procreation and sexual relationships to be between a man and a woman and within the confines of the marriage relationship.