Now a days, people are more concerned because of how they look, their image; especially women. This is due to the major influences that the media has over their visions. It is not only the media that is having this type of influence over women; also fashion dolls are having much of an influence, mainly Barbie dolls. The Barbie doll is a doll that is originally designed for girls, but women today see her as an ideal figure, and as a result they believe that that is the way they should look like. It was not until the 1950s that Americans began to feel the positive growth of the post-war economy.
People these days watched a lot of television shows, teenagers were trying to set a new music trend, and girls were playing with their paper dolls. So, it was back then that “the Barbie doll came as an inspiration to Mattel co-founder Ruth Handleer as she watched her young daughter, Barbara, playing with paper dolls” (Barbie, par 3). This inspired her because she always saw that her daughter was playing with her paper dolls making believe that the dolls were human beings and about their careers.
So, as soon as Ruth notices this, she acknowledged, “playing make-believe and pretending about the future is an important part of growing up”(Barbie, par3). She began doing some research, and discovered that there really weren’t any dolls that actually had a body, except for paper dolls, but the idea was to create a doll in which the girls could actually change their clothes, comb them, etc. So she decided to do this by designing a doll that was three dimensional to try and fill the gap.
Therefore, after several designs, in 1959, Mattel Inc. ntroduced to the market, Barbie the Teenage Fashion Model. The public had never seen a doll like this ever before because all that had ever existed before were baby and paper dolls. Ever since Barbie was introduced into the market, it has been the most popular fashion doll ever designed. As years have passed by, the Barbie doll has reflected the fashion industry all throughout its fashion trends and changes. Not only did it represent the fashion industry, but also it became friends of an entire generation of girls.
Today, not only do girls play with them but people also collect them as treasures, which will later on be worth thousands of dollars. But as mentioned above, most importantly, women and girls see Barbie as a perfect image. The Barbie doll is a doll that girls see as their friend. Actually Barbie has helped them open the doors to young girls’ imagination. Throughout the years, Barbie has been through numerous changes physically and also in the way that she is dressed. Not only this, but Barbie also has about seventy-five careers.
For example, she is an astronaut, a doctor, a dentist, a teacher, and so on. Barbie has represented the fashion industry all along, as well as many celebrities. For example there is a doll that represents Scarlet O’Hara from Gone with the Wind. But as we are able to see there is a difference between the Barbie doll that is designed for kids and the ones that are intended to be a collector’s item. Usually the ones that are designed for kids are mostly the ones that represent a career or the ones that have a fashion trend and that are very hip.
On the other hand, the ones that are designed for collecting are usually more expensive and more delicate, for example the one of Scarlet O’Hara is intended to be a collector’s item, as mentioned before. Later on, Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend was introduced into the market. As time passed, more dolls were launched into the market and they were claimed to be Barbie’s friends. This encouraged girls to play more with the Barbie dolls, and also, little by little they came to believe that Barbie was a perfect figure and that because if this they were supposed to look like her.
As a result of many girls believing that they want to be like Barbie and that they want to look like her, is that there are so many girls that believe that their image is everything they should worry about. Therefore, as a consequence there are many people that suffer from an eating disorder and are also frustrated with the way they look. It is not only girls that are having this trauma; also women believe this is so because they see Barbie as a perfect figure, when this is not true.
Studies have shown that if she were to be a real person, that it would be impossible for her to be able to walk, in fact to stand up due to the fact that her body is designed extremely out of proportion. “Barbie has the hourglass waist, ample bust line and long legs that were the ideal in the days when school had air-raid drills, Mamie Eisenhower was the first lady and Hugh Hefner started pandering to men’s fantasies with scantily clad real, live Barbies photographed for the pages of Playboy magazine” (Spano, par 5).
So, as we are able to see, Barbie’s body was designed with the idea of how men see a perfect women’s body. So now as a result many women are suffering, as a result of the way they look at the Barbie doll. Today, as mentioned above, many women see Barbie as a perfect image, a figure that they want to be like. It is impossible for any person to remotely look like Barbie, but women today don’t see things that way. They believe that they will be able to accomplish that goal. So in order to succeed they do things that in the long run will have a negative effect on them.
For example, many women begin not to eat in order to loose some weight. But what they don’t know is that if they stop eating it will be worst for them becauase then it may result in an eating disorder like Anorexia or Bulimia. Not only this, but also, they will go to plastic surgeons so that they could have a plastic surgery so that their bodies would look better, and be closer to the way Barbie looks. If women today look at Barbie this way, then how is the generation of girls that is growing up these days going to think about their image?
Well, first of all women need to change the way they think about the way they look becuase it not only affects them, but it also affects society, including chidren. This does affect society because it is the society as a whole that is suffering the consequences of these women trying to starve themselves and restructure their bodies, just to look like a doll. And it will affect the children of today, becuase they are growing up to see how this is affecting their mothers, and they would grow up to believe that women should look like Barbie does.
It is not only the Barbie doll that is having this kind of an impact on women, it is also, the media and the fashion industry, due to the fact that the only women that are shown are skinny women that have their bones sticking out due to their thinness. Society as a whole, is trying to convince the media and in this case Mattel Inc, to restructure the way they present a women’s image. Also they want Mattel to resdesign the doll so that it won’t have much of an impact on future generations to come, because everyday that passes this situation is getting to become a more serious issue everyday.