A recent article by NY Post columnist Andrea Peyser — a rant, really — caught my attention.\u00a0 Peyser was describing a backlash against the iconic doll, now a venerable 54; it seems the newly minted “Barbie Dreamhouse Experience” has raised hackles in at least one city, drawing topless protestors in Berlin waving burning crosses and calling for occupation of the Dreamhouse.<\/p>\n
Granted, said Dreamhouse does sound like a singularly unpleasant experience.\u00a0 Peyser refers to it as a “shrine to all things pink, sparkly and superficial.”\u00a0 Think Pepto Bismol fuchsia everywhere, and endless closets.\u00a0 Mattel, the company which spawned Barbie all those years ago, aims to create Dreamhouses in California, India, and New York, in which little girls may avail themselves of interactive features which, at the touch of a button, can make flowers rise, Barbie’s dog come out of his doghouse, or a pink dolphin pop up from a toilet seat.\u00a0 The wee visitors can be glammed up by staffers in order to walk a (pink) Peyser quotes the writer Camille Paglia, the self-described “dissident feminist,” whose work focuses on art, popular culture, politics, and feminism.<\/p>\n “Barbie is an idol, totem, and fetish of girl power,” Paglia said.\u00a0 “Her tiny face is a cartoon of perfect, porcelain femininity, but her hard, long body is armored and Amazonian.”<\/p>\n Leave it to Ms. Paglia, ever the provocateur, to identify female power in a Barbie doll’s body.<\/p>\n My own perspective on Barbie is somewhat unique: My sister and I were not permitted the doll.\u00a0 My mother, who had lived and worked in Paris, done a stint as a features editor for a fashion magazine in New York, and was later to acquire a doctorate in medieval English, was an early feminist, though she’d never have classified herself as such.\u00a0 She found the doll not merely vapid, but unsuitably suggestive and sexualized.\u00a0 It pissed us off as kids, of course, not having our very own Barbies; but luckily, our friends had many.\u00a0 You had your Malibu Barbie, Mod Barbie, Holiday Barbie, Barbie with a car, Barbie with her boyfriend Ken.\u00a0 It was dizzying, this Barbie-palooza, and because for my sister and me forbidden, exhilarating.<\/p>\n Today, I am a woman who actively dislikes shopping (though I do enjoy fashion and a new dress from time to time).\u00a0 I shudder away from the notion of body modifications.\u00a0 I get a question mark over my head when I hear about Barbie collectors, who have been known to go broke adding to their vast accumulation of that hard-bodied doll.<\/p>\n I feel not smug, but relieved.\u00a0 I dodged a plastic bullet.\u00a0 Thank you, Mother.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A recent article by NY Post columnist Andrea Peyser — a rant, really — caught my attention.\u00a0 Peyser was describing a backlash against the iconic doll, now a venerable 54; it seems the newly minted “Barbie Dreamhouse Experience” has raised … Continue reading ![\"Barbie](\"https:\/\/hometeamproductions.tv\/wordsworks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Barbie-protest-Berlin.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>runway and strike a pose.\u00a0 While blowing kisses.\u00a0 I tend to agree with Peyser.\u00a0 Really, is this what the world needs now?\u00a0 Is this the message we want to treat our daughters to?<\/p>\n<\/a>I can’t help but wonder if 54 years of the Barbie ethos hasn’t devolved aspects of our culture in alarming ways.\u00a0 The emphasis on all those little outfits, the over-abundance of teeny-weeny shoes and perfectly matching handbags results in a vacuous adult female who lives to shop.\u00a0 And surely those aggressively thrusting Barbie boobs have influenced today’s trend for ordering up from the plastic surgeon the huge fakies women seem to favor, no matter how slight their natural build.<\/p>\n\n