December 19, 2005
Mondo Barbie
When Spork was around ten years old, she walked into my home office with a mason jar, held it proudly up, and said, "I thought you'd like this!" The jar was filled with Barbie heads. Just the heads.
I thought, We raised her right!
But apparently, all our anti-capitalist and feminist teachings didn't really put her that far outside the mainstream, according to some University of Bath researchers. Barbie decapitation (among other things) is pretty routine:
BARBIE, that plastic icon of girlhood fantasy play, is routinely tortured by children, research has found.
The methods of mutilation are varied and creative, ranging from scalping to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving, according to academics from the University of Bath.
The findings were revealed as part of an in-depth look by psychologists and management academics into the role of brands among 7 to 11-year-old schoolchildren.
The researchers had not intended to focus on Barbie, but they were taken aback by the rejection, hatred and violence she provoked when they asked the children about their feelings for the doll.
Violence and torture against Barbie were repeatedly reported across age, school and gender. No other toy or brand name provoked such a negative response.
(The post title, btw, is from the excellent art-school-type-book Mondo Barbie, edited by Lucinda Ebersole and Richard Peabody. [amazon link])
[via metafilter.com]
Posted by johndanseven at December 19, 2005 10:40 PM