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 parents survived the Rapture...

...and all I got was this stupid T-shirt.

Ivan Raszl, who runs Ads of The World, has whipped up this product line over at CafePress. He hilariously applied his design to every product imaginable — from dog bowls to underpants.

Because we know only sinners wear these...

Wot's wrong with bein' sexy?

If you have been reading this blog for some time, you may have realized I'm a man who is dealing with an inner conflict. And that inner conflict is, I think, something most modern men have to come to terms with: In a society of equality, can images of women be "sexy" without being "sexIST"?

For example, you've probably seen me rant about American Apparel, and how in their ads they make their employees look like kidnapped teens in homemade porn. Or how PeTA uses the passionate conviction of their young members and celebrity endorsers to sexualize animal cruelty and dietary choices.

In other posts, you may have seen me rail against prudishness and censorship, whether it is what I feel are ignorant reactions to tasteful nudity in ads, or the misinterpretation of nudity in health or breastfeeding contexts as deliberately sexual.

So you can imagine that this video got my attention when it showed up in the morning Twitterfeed:



It was created an posted by Ivan Raszl, founder and curator of Ads of The World.

Just in case you aren't in advertising, and haven't heard of Ads of The World, it's a collection of campaigns from all over the globe. Agencies submit their work to share, brag, get industry critique, and get exposure for themselves and their clients.

Ads of The World has also become the "go-to" place for ad bloggers to find the latest and greatest campaigns. Look at the source links for many posts by Osocio, AdFreak, Copyranter, Adrants, and others, and often it will be "AOTW". (It goes both ways — AOTW syndicates Copyranter's posts on Twitter.)

Seeing a video like that, by someone who probably has one of the broadest perspectives on international advertising, I wondered what he was trying to say. Is advertising too sexy? Is it sexist? Is it stupid?

But this being 2011, I stopped wondering and just messaged Ivan up on Facebook. (Ad bloggers love to network there.) Here is our instant interview from this morning:

Tom: What is the overall message you are trying to convey?

Ivan: No message, just a showcase of sexy ads.

Tom: Do you think overt sexuality in ads is good creative strategy, or is it lazy?

Ivan: I think it's a good strategy to use sex for products that are related to sex— for example lingerie, condoms, beauty products, even certain alcohol products. But it's lame to use it for real estate or industrial companies, as it looks desperate and irrelevant.

Tom: Do you think ads sexualizing women are more effective with men, or women? Why are there so few "sexy man" ads?

Ivan: Sex is a major driving force for men. Women are comparatively less nudity-oriented, so they can be turned on by a man even if he isn't naked.  Also, women like to look at other women for a different reason: They look at them for inspiration, how the hair is done, how the eyebrows are done, what colors they wear, etc.

Tom: As curator of AOTW, you must see the trends from a macro level. Is it possible for an ad to be sexual without being sex-ist? What is the difference?

Ivan: How do you define sexist? It doesn't mean anything to me. Sexy is sexy, sexism is when you discriminate based on sex. I don't see how it applies to ads. You mean ads that imply that woman or men are less capable of certain mental tasks?

Tom: Some people believe that sexualization of women in ads makes men objectify them more as physical things, and makes women feel inadequate if they don't have toned — and photoshopped — bodies.

Ivan: I think ads just visualize what some men already think to be true. You can't really generalize about men — some men objectify woman with or without the ads. Others don't. It's not a matter of ads, it's a matter of the mental state of a specific man. More intellectual men do not see women as objects because they enjoy their company intellectually as much as physically. When they look at a "sexist" ad for them it refers to woman's physical being without demeaning their intellect.

Tom: Do you think overt sexuality in advertising has peaked? Can it go any further? Does it have to keep getting more intense, to shock and awe cynical viewers?

Ivan: You can see sexy ads peaking in Russia — everything is sexualized, and it's boring. They have no shock value anymore. The next frontier is religion. That still has a shock value.

An interesting exchange, both professionally and culturally. (Ivan is Hungarian, I am English Canadian.) I found his opinion logical and confidently sex-positive in that particularly European manner, while at the same time realizing that there are many conflicting ways of looking at the issue — philosophical, sociological and otherwise — that my readers may want to add below.

Mostly, I just love the fact that it's so easy to share these opinions.

Thanks, Ivan.