Don Richard Cox's "Barbie and Her Playmates" caught my attention immediately. Growing up in the nineties, Barbie was one of my many obsessions. Aside from Barney, Teletubbies and my Crayolas, playtime was dominated by Barbie dolls, a Barbie makeup head and a Barbie miniature kitchen. A trip to Wal-Mart implied another addition to the Barbie collection. However, in retrospect, Barbie hardly impacted my perception of beauty and my adolescence. In our technological world, compared to the information
decades of the 1960s and 1970s brought many new ideas and changes to America, a departure from the extremely conservative 1950s. Swinging to the other extreme, these decades introduced expanded freedoms to the younger generation, and their power and opportunity to break the social confines of past generations. Mattel’s Barbie Doll was born in 1959, and each Barbie throughout the two subsequent decades gave testimony to the multitude of changes happening (Lord 78). Barbie reflected major events of the times
Transcending a Cultural Influence In the article “Our Barbies, Ourselves,” Emily Prager shows how icons such as Barbie have created and perpetuated a fat-hating culture. In contrast, Zoe Whittall’s article, “My Hot Fat Girl Manifesto,” offers a prescription of how to transcend these cultural influences. The media’s perception of “beautiful” is making it hard for men and women everywhere to understand what beauty truly is. This skewed image of the perfect body causes many individuals to feel uncomfortable
27 October 2015 Barbie and Culture Barbie Millicent Roberts was born March 9, 1959 at the American Toy Fair in New York City (CITATION Inventors). She went on to become a part of millions of little girl’s lives. Her impact has been highly debated, even before she was released to the public. Barbie has an interesting history and has been constantly changing ever since her release in 1959. Inventor and co-founder of Mattel, Ruth Handler was inspired to create Barbie when she saw her own daughter,
Barbie dolls have been an important element of many girls’ youth. Numerous women of the previous generation have grown up dressing up and spending so much time with their Barbie dolls. As a result of the more time anyone spends with anything, the more influence it has on them. The idea of perfection has emanated from these petite illustrious figures. These Barbie dolls have represented society’s expectations on how the ideal woman should appear, but Barbie’s perpetuating image and beauty is unhealthy
has remained unique within the toy industry. Given that today a Barbie doll is sold somewhere in the world every two seconds, the doll provides a profound insight into how Barbie has evolved in response to changing cultural values. Referred to as “a doll that is duly famous for her capacity to constantly change, as well as her paradoxically concomitant capacity to always remain the same” (McDonough, 82), Barbie commercials document her progression from Prom Queen to career woman over the past fifty
negative image of women that permeates the hip-hop scene and persists far beyond it. The wide majority of these artists are men. However, there are bizarre exceptions. One of such bizarre exceptions is Nicki Minaj. Her rap music, while catchy, is filled with imagery of a woman as a dehumanized Barbie toy, a sex object, and a zombie-shopaholic. She is an American rapper who started receiving public notice after releasing three mixtapes between 2007 and 2009, in which she often chimes in with sexual references
perception of beauty among young girls and women between the ages of 13 and 29 in today’s society. The research will includes young girls and women insights of beauty, their definition and standard of beauty as well as to identify the factors that may influence their perceptions. Beauty is defined as a combination of qualities such as shape, colour or form that pleases the aesthetic senses especially the sight (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). In today’s society, women and girls are always striving to become
Nowadays, many people in Western society are concerned about their body image since the media attracts people’s mind. In fact, in daily life, people can see the advertisement for the fashion industry everywhere, and they start comparing their body with the ideal body image. In this way, the author of “ How The Media Keeps Us Hung Up on Body Image”, Shari Graydon argues that the media is only to blame for having negative body image in each one’s mind. However, Graydon’s argument is not persuasive
restaurant, laughing with her most trusted friends. One by one, they get in their cars parked along the city streets as she waves goodbye to each of them. Once she’s left all alone in the empty, dimly illuminated street, she begins her trip home. Minute by minute she walks, the tapping of her shoes on the sidewalk echoing and quickening, fearing someone may be following her. Footsteps are heard quietly behind her, increasing in volume every second. A hand comes down on her shoulder, giving a heavy