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College students' memories of Barbie -- her looks,messages -- lead to folklore studies of this top (and top-heavy) doll By
Sally H.N. Wright
Jeannie Thomas doesn't say anything as she shows off her latest acquisition: Working Woman Barbie. The little plastic doll does all the talking. "Saving money is smart! Today is payday! I have e-mail! I can't wait to go dancing with Ken!" squeaks Barbie, as Thomas gleefully presses the button that makes her speak. Thomas is not a little girl in a toy store. She is an associate professor of English at Utah State University with a doctorate in folklore and an interest in Barbie. Barbie has been the world's most popular doll since her debut at New York's American Toy Fair in 1959, and nearly all Americans, regardless of their age or gender, recognize the name and shape of the reigning plastic princess. Practically canonized by her fans, Barbie has also been the target of harsh criticism from feminists and those who study American culture. Thomas is something of a fence-sitter when it comes to labeling Barbie as good or bad. "She is a real mix of positive and negative," says Thomas. She expresses concern about the burdensome body image messages Barbie sends to the young girls who play with her. However, Thomas also cites an academic study that showed children enjoy "more creative, more facilitative play with Barbie than with baby dolls. There's less hitting, more cooperating. With Barbie, she's an adult, so they're assuming adult roles. But with baby dolls, they're assuming dictatorial parental roles." Thomas is an expert on folklore and folk culture, and is particularly interested in the relationship between folk culture and popular culture. She explained that culture has many levels. Elite culture, she said, is learned formally, and includes interests available to only a small percentage of the population, like fine art and opera. Popular, or pop, culture, includes nearly everything presented by the mass media on television, newspapers and movies. Folk culture, said Thomas, is learned informally when people observe each other. Behavior like tying one's shoes and waiting for a late professor for 10 minutes before assuming class is canceled are examples of folk culture. Even though Barbie is part of pop culture, much of the way she is marketed and played with is connected to folk culture. Thomas is not a longtime Barbie fanatic, but became intrigued with the doll when her students shared their Barbie stories with her. "It was a cumulative thing. Every time we talked about children's folklore, Barbie would come up," Thomas said. "I'll do research prompted by what my students do and talk about," she said, patting her decidedly un-Barbie-like shoulder-length brown hair. "There was such an intensity about her. I thought, 'Maybe I'd better look into this.'" She began to collect her students' stories about Barbie, hoping to analyze them and discover how Barbie has affected modern folk culture. "What we do with Barbie is way more complex than one -- than I -- would expect," said Thomas. In addition to regular role-playing with Barbie, Thomas heard stories about subversive Barbie play that involved decapitating her and melting her in an oven. However, even the most typical play was rarely one-dimensional. If Barbie were human-sized, she would stand 5-foot-6, weigh 110 pounds and have a 39-inch bust line. "We tend to say it's just play, but there's often serious cultural issues in play," she said. "I heard a lot of stories about kids doing funny thing with dolls," Thomas said. "When they were manipulating [Barbie's] life, that was the first time they started thinking about God." Kids also started defining their own sense of gender roles through Barbie play, she said. Other stories were about sexuality, as when a student told Thomas her cousin would always put the dolls in sexual positions. The messages about sex and gender roles Barbie may send her young audience may be tamer now than they first were. According to the book Forever Barbie by M.G. Lord, Barbie's creator, Ruth Handler, based Barbie's body on the shape of a different doll, a German doll named Lilli. Lilli was marketed as a 3-D pin-up bombshell for German men following World War II, and Thomas said Lilli's messages of sexual availability were no secret. "The ads were all semi-risque," she said, and "if you look at the old Lilli dolls-whoa!" Messages about sexuality and gender roles are only the beginning when it comes to Barbie controversy. The real problems most anti-Barbie people have are with her messages about body image. "Ruth Handler started making this doll to help girls deal with the changes in their bodies during puberty," said Thomas, "but her measurements are very problematic." Thomas does not stand alone in her criticism of Barbie's figure and messages of beauty and vanity. Lord points out that if Barbie were human-sized, she would stand 5 feet 6 inches tall, weigh 110 pounds, and have a 39-inch bust line, an 18-inch waist and 33-inch hips. "Barbie needs to get bigger feet, too," Thomas jokes with her folklore students, "to support the top half of the structure." Thomas said she is concerned about young girls who actually expect to develop similar figures, and says Barbie's long-time boyfriend, Ken, has a more realistic body type than Barbie. "The possibility of having Ken's shape is one in 50," she said, "but the possibility of being shaped like Barbie is less than one in 100,000." Some people try to defy the odds, however. Thomas said she has heard reports of a woman in England whose goal is to look exactly like Barbie. Through plastic surgery, she is reaching that goal. Thomas shakes her head and widens her eyes as she tells of the real-life British Barbie. The attractive Ph.D. with a happy husband, two small children and a fashionable wardrobe that includes turquoise boots cannot believe a modern woman would have such a strange goal. "My concern about body image is that is sends the wrong message to girls, and boys, too. Research of action figures with incredible muscles says they cause the same problems for boys," said Thomas. Thomas says Mattel, the company that makes Barbie dolls, has tried to justify why she has such an unrealistic body shape. "They say it helped clothes look better on her," said Thomas, who has other theories. "We're a breast-fixated culture. It's ideal body-beautiful every time." Barbie's shape, said Thomas, "reinforces that whole siliconization of the mammary glands in our culture." Most people would find it hard to believe that a culture saturated with Baywatch, Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues needs any help reinforcing a breast obsession. Ironically, Ruth Handler has fought breast cancer more than once, a battle that resulted in a double mastectomy for the creator of the first children's doll with breasts. Lord said Handler now works making breast prostheses for women of similar circumstances, and quotes her as saying, "I've spent my life going from breast to breast." For all the controversy and problems surrounding Barbie, she maintains her popularity. Thomas said she believes Barbie encourages creative play, which has helped Mattel become a part of contemporary folk culture. The variety of Barbies on the market enforces the connection she has with folklore and culture. "I was struck at how Mattel commodifies folklore and sells it. There are Barbies for holidays, fairy tales, even international Barbies," said Thomas. "Folklore studies places and culture and Mattel markets that in a really superficial way." Thomas is working on a contribution to a book about western folklore, and has researched how Barbie presents and sells western culture, and how she is used to sell other cultures to westerners. The copy on the boxes of international Barbies reveals the marketing of cultures foreign to many Americans. Part of Peruvian Barbie's box reads "Hola! I'm Peruvian Barbie and I'm proud to welcome you to one of the most beautiful and mysterious countries in South America. . . We love to attend festivals and dance the marinera and huayanos, two typical Peruvian dances guaranteed to make you smile! Today I am wearing an authentic Peruvian dress shawl in vibrant multi colors, which reflect the excitement, passion and beauty of my country." "I have golden bracelets on each arm and my feet are bare, just like a real Thai dancer," announces the copy on Thai Barbie's box. Polish Barbie's box says her people "love to celebrate and have many festivals, where everyone dances the polka, a dance we invented in Poland! My traditional folk costume is a lovely example of festival attire. I have a beautiful crown of flowers in my hair, tied with a pretty ribbon. I hope one of the boys will ask me to dance with him." Thomas laughs at the silliness of the descriptions and says Mattel exploits folklore by making seemingly exotic cultures accessible to the mass market and promoting "happy touriam and the singing, dancing native." The original ethnic Barbies did not share Barbie's name, said Thomas, they were Barbie's African-American friend Christie and Barbie's Latina friend Teresa. "Before I started doing this," she said, "they were all Barbie. Now I realize it's Barbie and family." More recently, the family group has grown to include Barbie's Asian-American friend Kira, and other ethnic dolls who do share Barbie's name. One doll that has yet to graduate to the rank of Barbie is Becky, Barbie's wheelchair-using friend. Thomas says Becky's wheelchair is brightly colored and looks like fun to play with. The copy on Becky's box says she is the photographer for her high school yearbook and enjoys spending time with her friends. While Becky's character lacks the glamour of some of the other dolls, Thomas says Becky is an acceptable way to promote open-mindedness about disabilities to children. "I realize it's a doll and it's mass-marketed, so how much can you do-but it is good," she said. Thomas said she suspects Barbie maintains her popularity because "they remake her constantly. They draw on long-standing folk behaviors, like playing with hair." Little girls like to play with hair, said Thomas, and Mattel has commodified that folk behavior in a marketable way by producing a doll with long hair to comb. "Mattel also uses current trends, like with Butterfly Art Barbie," Thomas said. This doll, a favorite of Thomas' preschool-age daughter, comes with tattoo-like stickers to apply to the doll and the people who play with her. "She's really just Tattoo and Pierce Barbie," said Thomas. Other Barbies that portray folk behaviors include several athletic lifestyle Barbies, career Barbies, color-changing special effects Barbies and even a birthday Barbie who blows out balloons. "Obscene, huh?" says Thomas, with an appreciative gleam in her eye. The variety is seemingly endless as exhibited by the hot pink wall of Barbie dolls and accessories seen at any toy store. While a Utah Barbie is not in the works, many Barbie fans and foes cannot resist putting their own spin on Barbie's personality. To Mattel's chagrin and in spite of legal battles, one group in San Francisco makes various Barbies for the 90's. The collection includes Pregnant Teen Barbie, whose expanded waistline keeps her from wearing the latest fashions, and Hacker Barbie, who comes wearing a dirty button-up shirt, worn-out jeans, a Casio watch and thick glasses. Students and friends joke about a Mormon Barbie, preoccupied with Relief Society meetings, but Thomas says the making of a Utah Barbie should be approached differently. "If I were making her, she'd be a lot more interesting," she said. "She'd have a lot more depth to her. She'd maybe be the eighth wife of some polygamist in Southern Utah," Thomas mused. Thomas confesses she has collected some Barbies since she started her studies. Greek Goddess Barbie, who comes wearing a toga with gold lame accents, best depicts a folklore influence, Thomas said, but her favorite is Mermaid Barbie. "It says on the box if you squeeze her tummy, bubbles come out her head, but really you have to squeeze her butt!" snickers Thomas. Regaining her academic dignity, she adds, "playing with bubbles is a folk behavior."
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