Interestingly enough, it was a woman, Ruth Handler, who created the Barbie doll and co-founded Mattel. I knew a girl who, at 18, looked enough like Barbie to have been a model for the doll.
My youngest sister and my daughter had Barbie dolls; but, they weren't focused on the figure or knew what sexuality meant, at the time. They were more into the various "roles" Barbie could play, or curling the hair and driving her around in her little pink car to park in front of her enormous doll house. Kids these days have more insidious fantasy characters we should worry about, like the dominatrices in some video games or self-created avatars modeled after their favorite rock stars.
As for Bratz, I never cared for those characters, either, including the name. But, they reflect the change in young girls' attitudes and preference for the more hip and edgy over the conservative (to the point of boring). After all, what was bombarding them from MTV, etc.?
Personally, I'm more concerned about the influence of certain pop stars on our young girls than dolls. At least most kids understand that dolls aren't real.
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Interestingly enough, it was a woman, Ruth Handler, who created the Barbie doll and co-founded Mattel. I knew a girl who, at 18, looked enough like Barbie to have been a model for the doll.
My youngest sister and my daughter had Barbie dolls; but, they weren't focused on the figure or knew what sexuality meant, at the time. They were more into the various "roles" Barbie could play, or curling the hair and driving her around in her little pink car to park in front of her enormous doll house. Kids these days have more insidious fantasy characters we should worry about, like the dominatrices in some video games or self-created avatars modeled after their favorite rock stars.
As for Bratz, I never cared for those characters, either, including the name. But, they reflect the change in young girls' attitudes and preference for the more hip and edgy over the conservative (to the point of boring). After all, what was bombarding them from MTV, etc.?
Personally, I'm more concerned about the influence of certain pop stars on our young girls than dolls. At least most kids understand that dolls aren't real.
December 12, 2008 - 9:24pmThis Comment
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