Die, Barbie!

[tikistitch]

Obviously, we don't agree, but I Blame the Patriarchy has an interesting discussion going on regarding our favorite plastic princess.

As we have admitted before, one abiding reason for our love affair with weird anime dolls is our continuing sorrow that our childhood Barbie dolls never came equipped with heavy weaponry, nor battle armor. (We are charmed by the odd contradiction that our beloved Japanese dolls are often manufactured not for budding feminists, but rather adult male collectors.)

It's uncomfortable, however, to be put in the position of a (supposedly) intelligent adult who glorifies the childish, trashy and trivial. Whimsy needs a bit of air to keep it afloat, else, like Tinkerbell, it simply dies. But, we will try. We celebrate Barbie for her preposterousness, as we glory in the doll geek's knowledge that Ruth Handler decreed, during her tenure at Mattel, Barbie should never, ever be packaged with a vacuum cleaner. Granted Barbie is viciously materialistic, but remember, she worked hard for the money for the down payment Dream House, as an astronaut, teacher, and presidential candidate. We'd also like our fellow feminists to contemplate the fact that Ken, the man in her life, is and has always been treated as an accessory, neither more nor less important than her new 'Vette.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled wackiness....

EDIT: BTW, we really should've mentioned that we found the link from the absolutely splendiferous Carnival of Feminists. Warning: ONLY click on the link if you have some time to kill!!

Comments

[jeepersjournal.livejournal.com]

Ken's so much of an accessory, he's now been replaced by random assorted male companions. So many people seem to ignore that Barbie was the FIRST doll made for children that wasn't a Baby for kids to play Mommy with, which in itself is pretty dang revolutionary. That being said, Barbies who kick ass are needed [I actually for the Wonder Woman one recently....]

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

I would like to like those superhero Barbies more than I actually do. (Or maybe I wouldn't, given the space constraints at Casa de Tikistitch.) Though if they do Takara Jenny as Poison Ivy, I'll have to get one.

[jeepersjournal.livejournal.com]

I dunno... I have Batgirl, Catwoman and Wonder Woman. Catwoman's kind of crappy, but was only 10 bucks. WW's pretty nice, and I really like Batgirl. Ivy looks much better though. The bendy arms are cool. Mabye my standards are lowered because I remember seeing the Hasbro 12-inch Poison Ivy, and their attempt at a 12inch animated Batgirl, and was verrrryyy disenchanted. Scary, giant heads, and poor body choices...
Quality dolls, like Takara styled'ld be neat though. But I own too many toys as it is ^_^

I'd of loved to see more anime dolls from Irwin after getting their updated 12inch lines with noses. But they're dead [well, just producing board games here actually. Like Jenga].

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Remember, I've been spoiled by a couple of astoundingly expensive Super Dollfies. It's hard to look at even the designer Barbies these days without remembering that I paid more for a single pair of boots for one of my big gals.

Alas, Irwin toys! *sniff*

[middle-savagery.livejournal.com]

I think that the feminists who rail against Barbie (and her "ghetto" Bratz equivalent) are missing the point. Barbie's a tool, not a paradigm. Sure, the template is hyper-feminized, but the true state of Barbie, the eventual outcome of Barbie is feral Barbie--hair chopped, legs chewed, and completely naked. I think that in itself shows that no matter what Barbie seems to dictate, little girls will bend her to their will rather than the other way around.

A lot of the commentary on that website seems very anti-feminist to me, in that they reject Western monolithic womanhood to simply replace it with Newage (rhymes with sewage) monolithic womanhood.

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Well said, Dr. Minty! I find it interesting that a doll which has been widely disparged as "too sexy" by prigs can also be put down as the equivalent of genital mutiliation surgery by feminists--seems adults can play as well.

There's another link on the main CoF site where they're getting squicky about Real Dolls. Wait, here it is:

http://trishwilson.typepad.com/blog/2005/10/real_creepy_rea.html