Die, Barbie!
Oct. 20th, 2005 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikistitchObviously, 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!!
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!!
