A New Barbie Commercial Challenges

While Barbie is known for giving off a bad message for children's body image, however she also has a very empowering massage. Many grownups believe that barbie has unrealistic body standards for young girls to look up to. Yet, many 6 to 10 year olds are not worrying about their body at this time of their life. Barbie was created in 1959, based off of Ruth Handler’s daughter’s fascination with an older doll. Her daughter wanted a teenage or grown up doll(“History”). Barbie was created by Ruth to show that a woman can do any job or any profession. "My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact a woman has choices."(“History”). In the 60’s and 90’s this was big because of all the women equality movements going on in America. Barbie also helps girls imagination. In a video recently released on Barbie’s website, it shows how Barbie can help a girl's imagination. In the video multiple young girls are seen doing grownup jobs. In the end it shows a little girl acting out the same jobs with her barbie dolls(“Imagine”). This shows that Barbie can help a girl imagine she can do anything just like the Barbie catch phrase, “Be who you want to be”. Barbie also has diversity. Christe, Barbie’s African American Best friend, was created to help make Barbie more diverse(Sherrow). There are even Latino Barbies

Always “Like a Girl” commercial was not only a hit in the media world, but a hit to the hearts of many women across the nation. In this commercial Always attempts to reach out and inform Americans of the damage caused to a female’s confidence when they do finally hit that age in their lives where insecurities begin to exist. Positively using their credibility and reputation to target a worldwide issue among woman so that it gains enough awareness to hopefully get fixed. Women working their whole lives to break society’s doubt so that they aren’t classified under another demeaning stereotype when asked, “What does it mean to do something ‘Like a Girl?’’’.

During the time of development and release of Barbie, the feminist movement was in full swing. The concept that Barbie may have been manufactured as a weapon against these feminist groups is plausible as the image of Barbie exploits the female body and challenges the values held by active feminists. Though, from a slightly different perspective, one could argue that Barbie with her freedoms and luxuries supports the ideals of women's equality and rights. Barbie may have been the transition piece of the decade, setting a new path for women and young girls.

Prager worms her way into the reader’s emotions by using pathos. Barbie’s are apart of almost every average American girl’s life, with each one owning up to at least ten of the dolls by the time they reach eleven years of age (Mirror-Mirror). The reader’s emotions are unlocked by the author through the use of one simple word: Barbie. Just bringing up the subject of Barbie in an article will make a woman’s ears perk up and cause one to want to see what is being said about the precious childhood toy. Merely mentioning the doll brings many back to the simpler days of childhood and provides the reader with a sense of nostalgia. Prager puts the reader into the mindset of remembering what it was like to play with Barbie and her counterpart Ken, thus allowing the audience to also regain access to questions they may have had whilst playing with the dolls during their childhood as well. Sharing some of her own questions, Prager reveals that even as a ten year old she found Ken’s lack of genitals “ominous” in comparison to Barbie’s voluptuous figure (Prager 355). As aforementioned, the author mentions early on in the article that a man designed Barbie. The author correlates this as the reason why Barbie is portrayed so voluptuously whereas Ken is not. Prager begins to move beyond our emotions, and into the ethics surrounding the making of

Picture yourself as the ‘perfect’ woman. Embodying every woman’s dream. You are undeniably gorgeous, weighing in at 100 pounds, standing 6 feet tall and holding nearly 150 careers (barbiemedia.com). Yes, this is the beloved, ever so ‘inspirational’ childhood toy, the perfectly perfect Barbie Doll. Barbie is America’s most beloved toy, considering young girls between the ages of three and eleven own at least 10 Barbie’s throughout their childhood (‘Life in Plastic’). As creator of the Barbie Doll once said, “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented that a woman has choices,” (Handler). However, Barbie has proved to serve the opposite effect and

Barbie has been the face that many girls all over the world have looked up to for 50 plus years. Since her debut in 1959, she has undergone so minor design changes and has even added a couple of friends. There were a few authors who wrote articles and poems about Barbie. Among the authors, Hilary Tham who wrote a poem called Barbie Shoes. Tham did mention some prejudices with Barbie shoes that can be compared to today’s society. She used words such as “useless” and “mismatch” which could detail that most Americans put things down in the basement to preserve for their children and grandchildren. Although Barbie shoes are “useless” and “mismatch” they still reintroduce newcomers with a like spark from the old shoes but go buy new Barbie shoes

Today’s society raises young women to conform to archaic practices with total disregard towards a child self-progression. In Barbie Doll poem by Marge Piercy it is portrayed a young girl who was attacked by society because of having unruly features on her appearance and body. To make clear, Piercy uses the title “Barbie Doll” in her poem to symbolize the cultural American traditions of making young girls live in a fairy tale world; where everything they see or do is perfect. The girl in this poem played with Barbie toys since she was little, but when she reached her puberty people started to criticize her of having imperfections on her face and body; which made her commit a really wrong decision for herself. In today’s society there are a large number of women having plastic surgery, because they do not feel comfortable or confident with their own appearances. Women are not just beauty queens and home makers; they should retreat from female stereotypes at a young age so they do not confront society pressure.

Barbie dolls, fairytales, princesses, models, actresses, true love, and happily ever after. The images flash through a girl’s mind as she matures and grows, and as she enters her teen years, she realizes she’s not perfect, she doesn’t have all those nice things she read about and watched when she was little, and it’s distorted her view of herself and on life. Society has started to realize that these images that little girl’s look up to are starting to cause problems in those girls’ futures, and satire has become a strong tool in bringing these problems to the attention of

In conclusion, Barbie’s changing fashions, interests and views have altered in response to suit pop culture throughout the years. Barbie is a physical personification of popular culture throughout the years, and she has grown to fit the world around her, to change with the ‘fads’ and ‘fashions’ of the time. However in some cases it seems as though she has transgressed us on some levels. Barbie is a palpable representation of the amount of change that has taken place over the decades, a change in social thinking, social constructs, fashion and beauty. The Barbie doll is the perfect representation of popular

The authors vividly convey the role of identity and culture in the short stories “Barbie-Q” and “Superman and Me”. In “Barbie-Q” the author identifies culture in the way how barbies image have always been a physical representation of what a female body should look like. “Superman and Me” the culture related is how indians weren’t supposed to be smart, learn how to read or write. The indian culture celebrated when they failed, but were hated on if they succeeded. Both stories show the role of identity of culture by having it represent them and society.

What was that one doll every little girl just had to have growing up? What doll made little girls obsess with perfection? What doll set the unrealistic standards for girls starting at ages three or four? Barbie is a children’s toy that was first introduced to the market in 1959. Barbie was the perfect role model for all girls. She was perfectly skinny, had a perfect boyfriend and family, perfect hair, perfect house, perfect everything, but her existence is completely ironic. Although Mattel, creator of Barbie, attempts to make Barbie absolute perfection, all her imperfect buyers are wondering why they cannot look like the beautiful doll. She is responsible for the diminishing young girls’ self-confidence. Lisa Belkin believes girls in today’s society cannot comprehend what true beauty is because they were so entranced with the idea of Barbie in her online article “Banning Barbie.” Barbie should be pulled off the shelves immediately. Barbie’s looks, actions, and lust for materialistic objects are the blame for the degeneration of assurance in young girls and women.

As such, most girls’ childhood stories are filled with their experiences with Barbie such as making Barbie their number one companion by always having her wherever they go, cutting off her long blonde hair, and feeling devastated if a sibling or a playmate ripped Barbie’s head off. Moreover, whether Americans are willing to accept it or not, the Barbie has significantly transformed American culture in so many diverse and subtle ways to comprehend fully. Although some have sweet nostalgic memories about Barbie, most girls’ lives have been negatively affected by beholding Barbie as a major female icon during their childhood (Battistoni 26). Despite being a mere plastic toy, to the young girls, the Barbie life is all they ever want and strive to be in life; hence, most use Barbie as the guiding standard against which they have to measure and assess their lives on all spheres. Nonetheless, since attaining the Barbie blonde status in real life is an elusive endeavor, most girls have subjected themselves to immense pain leading to poor mental health and low self-image. This is because they are convicted

The Barbie commercial it really shows how much that America is changing. Barbie is trying to make their product gender related. Boys and girls can both be anything that they wish to be. Companies are taking the gender off of their labeling and saying that any child can play with the product. America is really trying to make an effort in saying that boys and girls and men and women are equal. There isn't just jobs that are specifically made for men and jobs specifically made for

Similarly, always played music in the background of their ad that truly solidified each and every scene. As the people in the ad gave testimonies about their encounters with the term “Like a Girl,” the music was solemn and mellow, but as the participants started to speak words of equality, dignity, and humbleness, the music reached a triumphant din to signal resilience and that the fight for equality is not over. Both ads also use symbolism in their slogans and word art. When young mothers see the phrase “Imagine the possibilities” in reference to their daughter, one would only hope that they truly “imagine the possibilities.” Would this Barbie dressed as teacher inspire karen to do school work? Would this Barbie dressed as a doctor finally make Emma go get a check up? These are the thoughts Barbie wants to instill in young mothers minds, and it does so by using these variations of symbolism to connect on a personal level. The “Like a Girl” ad is scattered with symbolic meanings that ultimately cater to young men, and women as well. The most apparent example of symbolism in the “Like a Girl”ad was the usage of young girls who were many years from puberty as a control group; not affected by the “Like a Girl” stigma. By doing so, the company symbolized that through puberty and growth the stigma captures the youth, but we can 't

A. As a young child, you have played with a Barbie and never realized how this doll was created. It was introduced into the world as a teenage fashion model in the late 1950’s.