Is the boy in the Moschino Barbie ad a leap forward?

That wasn't a rhetorical question. While I applaud gender diversity in a traditionally female toy category, the portrayal of the boy seems a little... umm... stereotyped?

FRIDAY IS FIERCE LIKE #MOSCHINOBARBIE

A video posted by Jeremy Scott (@itsjeremyscott) on Nov 20, 2015 at 5:00pm PST

Not that there's any problem whatsoever with implying that the little boy is gay, but did they have to do it with such a cartoonish cliché?

People seem pretty happy with this development (at least the Buzzfeed set) but I'm not sure this is as progressive as it seems. The idea that Barbie is an obsession for gay men is not exactly new, nor is the conspicuous presence of gay men in the fashion industry.

Making the only male character in the ad a miniature Jeremy Scott is a big wink to insiders, but what is it doing to transcend stereotypes? Heterosexual — or less stereotypically gay — boys who want to play with dolls in this sexist, homophobic world won't be helped by this stereotype. They might even be hurt by it.

"Realistic Barbie" is back, now with acne and cellulite

Via Time

I've written before about the "Lammily" doll. It's a Barbie-type doll that was computer modelled using more realistic proportions of a 19-year-old woman. In March of this year its creator, Nickolay Lamm, announced a Kickstarter to bring the doll to market. After raising more than five times his $95,000 crowdfunding goal, Lammily is ready to hit the Christmas market.

But what would a Barbie-like doll be without accessories to buy? So Mr. Lamm is planning to release an accessory pack in the new year. But instead of swimsuits or dream houses, Lammily gets cellulite, scars, stretch marks and zits.

The creator told Time, “I wanted to show that reality is cool. And a lot of toys make kids go into fantasy, but why don’t they show real life is cool? It’s not perfect, but it’s really all we have. And that’s awesome.”

Realistic "Barbie" ready to hit stores

Remember Nickolay Lamm's "real woman dimensions" Barbie? After scoring viral gold, he's decided to actually produce his  "Lammily" doll commercially.

From Policy Mic:

Lamm decided to take matters into his own hands after being bombarded with questions about where to buy a Barbie of normal size. The entrepreneur is offering prototypes of his toy to the first people to donate to his Kickstarter campaign, but his plan is to eventually be able to distribute the doll widely online and in retail. The longer term vision also includes embracing diversity by creating dolls with different ethnic backgrounds and body types.

Here's his video:



The final Lamily is brunette, not blonde, and she also fully-articulated, allowing "her" to do a lot more than standing around stiffly:

Would you prefer this doll for your kids? Or will she end up being a real world "Lisa Lionheart"?

Barbie's on the cover of the SI Swimsuit Issue - but will anyone notice?

Via Business Insider

Okay, she has a bigger head and a smaller bust than Kate Upton. But the plastic skin tone is bang on.

Adweek's Emma Bazilian writes,

Along with the editorial spread, Mattel and SI are also collaborating on an advertorial component around Barbie’s new “#unapologetic” campaign, which celebrates Barbie’s (sometimes divisive) role in society. “As with Barbie, every year the Swimsuit edition sparks conversations about women and body image, and Sports Illustrated stands unapologetically behind this issue that women, in reality, love,” a Mattel spokesperson told Adweek. “Unapologetic is a rally cry to embrace who you are and to never have to apologize for it.” A billboard teasing the campaign (and Barbie's involvement in the Swimsuit Issue) made its debut in Times Square earlier this month.

#unapologetic is an interesting move for Mattel, who redesigned the iconic doll in 1997 to have more "realistic" proportions, and in 2012 had her "run for President." It seems they have decided to embrace the controversies about Barbie and body image. 

Don't forget, girls: Anything is possible! (Adweek)

In this case, the convergence of little girls' playthings and adult male desire is super creepy. When you read copy like "a playful, behind-the-scenes video series... shows fans what it takes to be a Sports Illustrated legend — like Barbie!" who exactly are they talking to? Who is supposed to buy these cross-promotional dolls? 

If this plays out the way I think it's going to, I'm pretty sure some apologies will be in order.

Related posts:

One of the better "realistic" Barbie dolls I've seen

Barbie joins the RCMP, goes ginger, in Mountie/Mattel cross-promo

My favourite Barbie photo in the history of ever

Barbie joins the RCMP, goes ginger, in Mountie/Mattel cross-promo

Via The Mountie Shop

Cue the "she always gets her man" jokes. (Oh wait, the Globe and Mail already did that.)

The red-haired northern Barbie was briefly available directly from the RCMP's official e-commerce site before being completely bought out by what I can't help but visualize as hundreds of Mr. Smithers clones.

Via Tumblr

Here's the product description:

The Dolls of the World® Barbie® collection celebrates travels with Barbie® dressed in the ancestral clothing of her country. This Barbie® Doll of the World hails from the land of the maple leaf, maple syrup and the maple donut: Canada! Part of the Pink Label collection, RCMP Barbie® is dressed in the uniform currently worn by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or Mounties, as they are widely known. Her scarlet tunic is accented with the cross strap and belt, navy and yellow breeches and tall Strathcona boots while her Stetson can be removed to reveal her bright red hair. RCMP Barbie® comes in keepsake travel trunk packaging and includes a “pink passport” for the perfect way for Barbie® to travel across Canada, and the world, in style!

I'm not sure the fitted tunic is regulation. (Her waist sure isn't!) And the loose hair wouldn't pass inspection. Plus, the pants aren't exactly that figure-hugging:

Via 

As one of Canada's most recognizable brands, the RCMP dress uniform lends itself to all sorts of cross-promotions, from collectible coins to Cookie Monster dolls.

The National Post reports that the RCMP's licensing fee from Mattel will go toward at-risk youth programs.

One of the better "realistic" Barbie dolls I've seen

Recently, I wrote a piece on Osocio about the may attempts people have made to bring attention to Barbie's exaggerated proportions — elongated legs, tiny waist, and huge head.

They ran from the thought-provoking:

To the absurd:

This latest entry, from 3-D printer artist Nickolay Lamm, stands up with the best of them:

Via 3D Prints of The World

Here is its backstory (via ONTD Political on Livejournal):

Artist Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com used CDC measurements of an average 19-year-old woman to create a 3-D model, which he photographed next to a standard Barbie doll. Lamm then photoshopped the 3-D model to make it look like a Barbie doll.  

"If we criticize skinny models, we should at least be open to the possibility that Barbie may negatively influence young girls as well," Lamm said in an email to the Huffington Post. "Furthermore, a realistically proportioned Barbie actually looks pretty good." 

Considering how peculiar a Barbie body would look in real life, Lamm concluded: "If there's even a small chance of Barbie in its present form negatively influencing girls, and if Barbie looks good as an average-sized woman in America, what's stopping Mattel from making one?"

Via ONTD Political

But is this a realistic portrayal? As you can see above, I maintain a healthy skepticism about these things. I finally found the original source link, and here is the artist's explanation:

This white model was made using measurements that match up closely with CDC measurements of the average 19 year old woman in America. The end result is what Barbie would look like if she was a healthy, beautiful, 19 year old woman.

Via MyDeals.com

Mr. Lamm adds:

Some people say that we shouldn't pay attention to the body proportions of Barbie because she is just a toy. On the surface, that sounds like a valid argument. But a closer look, through research, suggests that Barbie may lead to the following…
- Heightened body dissatisfaction among young girls (Dittmar)- Unhealthy eating behaviors (Dittmar)-  A desire to achieve a slim body and therefore eat less (Anschutz)

Via Daily Mail

 Thanks to Ivan at 3D Prints of The World for the tip!

Related Posts:
My favourite Barbie photo in the history of ever
Beauty and the beastly business of quantifying it
How would ad agencies prefer to depict women's body issues?
Humans don't look like fashion illustrations
Please stop sending me this "banned" voluptuous Barbie ad
Lingerie models look just like Barbie
This Disney Princess knockoff is accidentally brilliant
Barbie? Is that you?
Barbie 2012
Barbie's big gay Malibu wedding?
Life in plastic, it's fantastic!
Australia's "Barbie Girl" is not sheepish about shilling for meat
Lady BaBa performs for Nokia

Barbara, we have to stop meeting like this!

My favourite Barbie photo in the history of ever

Copyright Julie Lauren. via julielaurin.com

No, it's not one of Mariel Clayton's psychotic Barbie shots. Or even this old Body Shop ad. It's a photo just published by a Facebook friend, Ottawa photographer Julie Lauren.

Julie's pictures tend to explore the awkwardness of human bodies, held in contorted poses or expressions by other people, duct tape, or plastic sheeting. Her new series on dolls, however, is particularly interesting. Laurie has been gleaming thrift shops for old Barbies and related dolls and accessories, then creating interesting compositions with them.

Of all of them this one struck me as particularly meaningful. It says so much about the spectre of body image that looms over young girls as they consume magazines, fashion ads, and of course gendered Barbie play.

The setup of this shot was dead simple, all done in camera with backlight, paper and toys. For those interested, Julie explains the "making of" on her blog. 

But I'm more interested in the final effect: the pudgy little girl casually glancing over her shoulder, but not yet fully aware of the impossible perfection forming in her subconsciousness, with special emphasis on her sexual parts. 

I could go on and on, but this picture is worth more than a thousand words. Well-done, Julie.

Lingerie models look just like Barbie

And not in a good way.

via Listia

Copyranter featured this campaign for Spain's Jane Pain (ay that three times fast) with the headline, "What you can´t see is all you want to see." 

I assume that these are two-page magazine spreads, with the genital folds hidden in the magazine fold.

Clever idea. Freaky execution.

This Disney Princess knockoff is accidentally brilliant

Via BuzzFeed

That's right — those characters, in general, teach girls to be bland: dependent on men to define themselves, lacking agency, and generally vacuous.

I wonder if the people who named this toy were trying to say "white girl".

See also:

Via Cookdandbombd

Barbie... she's so benign.

Barbie 2012

Cross-posted at Sociological Images

Barbie is running for President of The United States of America... again.

The candidate as Euro-American.

She even has a campaign Tumblr. But what is her platform?

Okay, so she's not taking any strong stands on the GOP's War on Women's reproductive rights. But she did come up with a totally awesome nickname for her campaign ("Glam-paign"). 

Apparently, however, candidate Barbie will do something no other candidate can: she will bridge the racial divide in America by morphing herself into four different ethnicities!

The candidate as African American, Asian American and Latina(?) American.

Yes, I get that this is a toy. And the Miss-America-style platitudes are to be expected from a company that wants to sell to both sides of the political divide. But it's a shame that girls don't get a chance to see that women really can change the world.

This week, Malawi swore in Southern Africa's first female head of a country. She wasn't elected as such, but as Vice President took the position after President Bingu wa Mutharika died in office. (A scenario that could have happened with Sarah Palin, had John McCain won the Presidency.)

Other women currently heading states and countries are:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - President of Liberia
Doris Leuthard, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Simonetta Sommaruga - Members of the Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland
Pratibha Patil - President of India
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner - President of Argentina
Dalia Grybauskaitė - President of Lithuania
Laura Chinchilla - President of Costa Rica
Dilma Rousseff - President of Brazil
Atifete Jahjaga - President of Kosovo
Monique Ohsan Bellepeau - Acting President of Mauritius
Slavica Đukić Dejanović - Acting President of Serbia

And:

Angela Merkel – Chancellor of Germany
Julia Gillard - PM of Australia
Yingluck Shinawatra – PM of Thailand
Helle Thorning-Schmidt – PM of Denmark
Portia Simpson-Miller – PM of Jamaica
Kamla Persad-Bissessar – PM of Trinidad and Tobago
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir – PM of Iceland (Appointed)
Hasina Wazed – PM of Bangladesh 

The United States has yet to elect a woman to the position. And while Canada has had two appointed female Vice-Regents, we have yet to elect a woman to the Prime Minister's Office. (Kim Campbell was nominated for the position directly by her party.)

So perhaps it's time for Barbie, who has been in every federal election since 1992, to campaign a little harder. Or for North American countries to catch up with the rest of the world and nominate and elect a woman of substance who isn't seen as just "another Barbie".

Australia's "Barbie Girl" is not sheepish about shilling for meat

Sam Kekovich is an Australian sports commentator, media personality and "lambassador" for Meat & Livestock Australia.

To promote heavy lamb consumption for Australia Day cookouts, Sydney agency BMF teamed him up with surgically-enhanced pop singer Melissa Tkautz to perform a carnivorous cover of Aqua's 1997 dance hit, “Barbie Girl”.



Did I mention that he's autotuned? He also raps.

Happy Australia Day down there.

Tip via The Inspiration Room

Barbie's big gay Malibu wedding?

Copyranter posted this pic with the observation that Barbie appears to be hooking up with Ellen Degeneres.

It's actually supposed to be Ken in this colouring book, and the scenario is actually a movie premiere. The illustrator just seems to have Bieberized Ken for the little girl market.

Too bad. Since Ken went all lavender anyway, in the early '90s, Barbie might as well expand her horizons.

And it's not like homophobic parents should have any problems with a Sapphic Barbie. I've had a good 41 year run with heterosexuality, despite early exposure to Big Jim's very special friend, Jack.

I think it was the homemade pants.

Barbie? Is that you?

This collector's edition doll is designed by Japanese-inspired Italian "lifestyle brand" Tokidoki, and is available for $50 at their online store.

The pitch:

"Tokidoki® Barbie® doll is always ready for cutting-edge fashion! This funky fashionista features trendy tattoos and a pink bob. With cactus friend, Bastardino, by her side, she’s ready for fun in fashion-forward form!"

Pink hair? Tattoos? "Bastardino"?

This isn't your grandmother's feminine ideal.

Please stop sending me this "banned" voluptuous Barbie ad.

You've probably seen this ad floating around on Facebook, Twitter, Buzzfeed or elsewhere, possibly with an ask to petition Mattel to stop censoring it.

Just one problem: That ad is 13 years old.

In 1998, The Body Shop debuted its self-esteem campaign, featuring the generously proportioned doll we dubbed "Ruby." Her rubenesque figure graced windows in The Body Shop windows in the UK that year, along with our slogan, "There are 3 billion women who don't look like supermodels and only 8 who do." She went on to appear in stores in Australia, Asia, and the United States, where she captured the imaginations of consumers weary of the rail-thin heroin-chic of the beauty industry's advertising messages.

Ruby was a fun idea, but she carried a serious message. She was intended to challenge stereotypes of beauty and counter the pervasive influence of the cosmetics industry, of which we understood we were a part. Perhaps more than we had even hoped, Ruby kick-started a worldwide debate about body image and self-esteem.

But Ruby was not universally loved. In the United States, the toy company Mattel sent us a cease-and-desist order, demanding we pull the images of Ruby from American shop windows. Their reason: Ruby was making Barbie look bad, presumably by mocking the plastic twig-like bestseller (Barbie dolls sell at a rate of two per second; it's hard to see how our Ruby could have done any meaningful damage.) I was ecstatic that Mattel thought Ruby was insulting to Barbie -- the idea of one inanimate piece of molded plastic hurting another's feelings was absolutely mind-blowing.

So yes, Mattel did send a cease-and-desist. In the last century. Here's a different version:

Via Big Fat Deal

Want more?

Via El Blogo De Mango

Via Ruby's creator, Host International

Not that it makes it any less of a good campaign, or Mattel's reaction any less stupid. But get with the times! Today, we're hating on Mattel and Barbie for irresponsible cardboard sourcing in their packaging.

Lady BaBa performs for Nokia

The worlds of Barbie fetishists and Lady Gaga's little monsters are colliding in a weird new Nokia ad for the n8 Pink:



Dig the "Exorcist" headspin, disembodied dancing legs, the smartphone bra with frickin' lasers in it, tattooed Barbie limbs, and a nippless Lady Godiva sideboob shot.

And there's a making of, too:



Well, okay then!

Music is "Freedom" by The Sugababes.

Via BuzzFeed

Life in plastic, it's fantastic!

The popular doll who everyone loves to hate is undergoing a makeover.

No, she's not going back to her heavy-handed '70s eyeshadow. I'm talking about the brand.

This new ad, from California's Firedrill Productions, repositions the posable plastic person as an enabler for girls who have big dreams for their future:

That's right. Barbie has moved on from her dreams of marrying Ken and setting up a Malibu Dream Home.  Now she can be whatever she wants to be, because that's how 21st Century girls role model.

Do you buy it? There has been a lot of attempt, over the past couple of decades, to give Barbie better prospects than just being pretty. And none too soon, either, since Ken is suspected to have switched teams back in the 90s.

Can Barbie ever become an ambition learning tool? I think the pressure is more on the parents than it is on Mattel.