The Classic Barbie Doll is Propaganda

Looking at the surface of the classic Barbie doll, you see a plastic, pretty depiction of a young woman with tanned skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. Typically, looking at a Barbie you wouldn’t see any type of threat or negativity surrounding the harmless 10-inch doll. However, digging deeper beneath her plastic exterior, we can see the true effects this world-wide phenomenon has had on all different types of people and society as a whole. Before we begin to discuss the effects Barbie herself has had on society and our culture, we need to look into what propaganda and art are, and what makes them different from one another. Propaganda, as defined by T. Smith in his book, Propaganda: A Pluralistic Perspective, is “a form of communication involving the sending of a message to a receiver” (Smith, pg 53). However I personally don’t think that this definition accurately captures what propaganda is to its full extent. To me, propaganda has a very negative connotation with the idea that it is meant to manipulate, or evoke some sort of emotion or change within its audience. Art on the other hand, is something that is meant to make an audience think. Its purpose is to express the thoughts, feelings, and so on of the artist who created it; art is meant to be analyzed, not accepted. Art lacks the responsive connection propaganda strives to create. This isn’t to say that Barbie is not art, because the doll is indeed a work of art that someone put the time into to designed and create. Just because it’s an extremely main-stream toy and is made of cheap plastic doesn’t mean it’s void of any artistic background. Although one could consider a Barbie a work of art, the typically silent propaganda the doll exudes overshadows the “art” aspect of the d...

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Works Cited

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Smith, Ted J. Propaganda: A Pluralistic Perspective. New York: Praeger, 1989. Print.

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