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Magdalena Vermonte
English 1010-89
Daniel Baird
4/28/2014
Position Synthesis
Barbie
Since 1965 when Barbie was first created many people have loved and or
hated her. This love hate relationship has only gotten more complex in recent years;
many people believe that Barbie is causing many of the social problems we see in
young women. The belief is, that Barbie is creating a false and impossible images of
what beauty should look like and is causing teenagers and young adults to try and
achieve a type of beauty that is extremely unhealthy and unrealistic. Recently Sports
Illustrated came out with their annual swimsuit edition, however in this years
swimsuit edition they featured Barbie as one of their models in swimsuits. This
event has made many people furious at both Sports Illustrated at Barbie, but why are
people so obsessed and outraged at the fact that Barbie is being featured in Sports
Illustrated?
Sports Illustrated is an incredibly famous sports magazine and every year
they have a special swimsuit edition where they publish photos of models in
swimsuits. Two days after the publication of Sports Illustrated swimsuit editon
Forbes published an article about how Barbie was being featured in this SI swimsuit
edition. Sports Illustrated is one of the most predominant sports magazines in the
country yet they seem to be more obsessed with pretty women in swimsuits than
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with women who have had great accomplishment in sports. The article also goes to
say that [while] Barbie might be #unapologetic Sports Illustrated should be.
It should be embarrassed. Even thought Barbie is the one being featured SI is the
one publishing it and if it wasnt enough to make women feel conscious of how they
looked whit actual women in swimsuits putting a plastic doll in a swimsuit seemed
like a great idea, but to top it off they published the edition on the same week that
the international toy fair was taking place. Even though children wont be reading SI
and Genaro find the fact they chose to publish their edition during the toy fair is
outrageous Because what says great for the kids! more than a couple of dozen
mostly naked women in a magazine produced to titillate an adult male audience?.
In my opinion Forbes hit it right on the spot while yes Barbie is the one being
featured and Barbie is the toy for children Sports Illustrated should know better.
Sports illustrated already gets an iffy rep with their swimsuit edition and people
already believe that they prefer to objectify women rather than boast about their
achievements and lets be clear its called Sports Illustrated not bikini illustrated.
Although Barbie could have taken a stance and said no to SI, which would have
probably been the smart thing to do children who are still playing with, dolls most
likely arent reading Sports Illustrated.
While Forbes takes a very strong stance in saying how wrong Sports
Illustrated was in putting Barbie in their edition and they choose to mainly attack SI
in another article on a website called Divine Caroline Stephanie Hoskins writes
about the negative effects of Barbie on children and whether it affects girls as they
begin to grow up. Hoskins writes about how some studies have been seeing whether
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Barbie really does affect children and society as so many believe the results showed
that they did mostly just on children and the effects werent as bad on teenagers as
many would like to believe but that Barbies do have the capability to affect girls and
children from a young age: those exposed to Barbie doll images produced lower
self-esteem and a greater desire for a thinner body shape than in the other exposed
conditions. Although, the oldest girls did not have an immediate negative impact
from the Barbie doll images. Hoskins then goes on to write about a T.V. Heidi
Montag has gone through various body modifications because she according to Ms.
Montag she wanted to look like Barbie but that she wasnt addicted to going under
the knife, Hoskins then goes to introduce a psychologist by the name of Debbie
would disagree with Ms. Montags statement of no being addicted to going under the
knife Debbie says I think fundamentally, when someone goes on for many, many,
many, procedures at a young age theyre trying to change something about
themselves, they want to become a new person."
I believe that this article is a bit biased although the author of this article
does use facts from studies the studies never state that they can be sure that the doll
has any long term effects on women and I believe that parents and mothers are just
trying to find an excuse to excuse them from not being able to get their child or
children to love them selves for who they are so they have to go blame a doll. While I
agree with the fact that Barbies body is extremely unrealistic and if put to scale
would be incredibly dangerous for any human being to have; However I believe that
people are underestimating kids perspective of what is real and what is not, most
kids know that Barbie is a doll and only a doll it seems to adults who forget that
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Barbie is not a human she is a toy to entertain children and make money for a
company.
While all the articles about Barbie say many things about how bad either SI
or Barbie are they dont really say much on what there is that we could do. Like
what we could do instead of making women more self conscious about there
appearance but actually do the opposite and help them find something that would
give them an idea of a beauty image that is actually attainable. At the end of Divine
Caroline Hoskins talks about a doll by the name of Emme. Emme is a doll that is
based of a famous plus size model named Emme this doll is a doll like Barbie except
this doll has normal features a normal sized neck is a size 16 and doesnt have a tiny
waste. Hoskins talks about a mother who will only buy there children Emme dolls
because she doesnt want her kid to grow up and learn to hate there bodies because
of some plastic dolls whos body is impossible. ABC also published an article where
they talk about Emme. When Emme was interviewed on Good Morning America
Emme shares her views on what she believes parents should do to help there
children in getting a view of real people look like Emme goes to say it's a great idea
for parents to provide their kids with dolls that represent real people. Give your
children, if you can find them out there, dolls of all different hues, of color and
different shapes and sizes, (ABC). This article never goes as far to hate on Barbie
but is basically states how Emme is healthy for kids and Barbie is not.
I think that the idea of Emme is fantastic if it didnt cost $100-$150 in my
opinion anyone who buys there kids a doll that expensive is just going to fixated on
expensive things rather than normally priced toys. Its like getting a child to go from
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obsessing from one thing to another your making them less conscious of how they
look and you might be helping them from doing things that would be unhealthy to
them selves, but replacing it with becoming obsessed with something else that could
be just a harmful which is money.
In conclusion I find that in each article they state that Barbie creates a type of
falseness whether being in how Barbie looks or how Barbie is being represented.
Hence while Barbie may seem to cause many of what we see as societal problems in
women there is no concrete proof stating that Barbie has any long term effects.
People especially parents and women seem to be so obsessed with Barbie and
Sports Illustrated mostly because SI is an adult magazine and there swimsuit edition
is aimed to adult men and the idea that a childrens doll is featured in that type of
magazine seems to make people cringe due to the fact that they dont want those
two things to mix.










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Works Cited
"Emme Doll Aims for Healthy Body Image." ABC News. ABC News Network, 19 Feb.
2014. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
Genaro, Teresa. "Barbie Is #Unapologetic, But Sports Illustrated Should Be
Embarrassed." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
Hoskins, Stephanie. "The Negative Effects of Barbie on Young Girls an the Long Term
Results." Divine Caroline. Divine Caroline, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.