Confessions of a Life-Sized Barbie Doll

I loved dolls as a kid. Barbies, Fashion Pollys. Through dolls I had the ability to enter another world, a world where I could get caught up in romance and adventure. I made up countries, names, and story lines. I learned to sew by creating outfits for my dolls. Let me tell you, it’s not easy sewing a shirt for a three-inch doll. Maybe I was just a more imaginative kid than most, but as I played, I escaped into these dolls’ “lives” and for just that time, I was one of them.

A few years ago I saw a news article titled, “The Scary Reality of a Real-Life Barbie Doll.” It was written by a college student for the Huffington Post. It begins, “Some people have skeletons in their closet. I have an enormous Barbie in mine.”

In 2007, for her high school National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Galia Slayen created a model of what Barbie would look like if she were life-sized. The result? Barbie would be 5'9" tall, have a size 3 shoe, and weigh 110 pounds. “If Barbie was a real woman, she'd have to walk on all fours due to her proportions,” Slayen wrote. Barbie would be outrageously anorexic, not to mention, extremely disfigured.

Just a Doll

But why does it matter if Barbie is disproportionate? I mean, she’s a doll, right? Not necessarily. Since Barbie first began marketing in 1959, Barbie has become a symbol of feminine beauty and sexuality, contributing to the modern cultural understanding of beauty.

While that may seem like a lot of blame to put on any one toy, the makers of Barbie have intentionally marketed her as an ideal to become. In one commercial from 2007, the jingle goes, “Wanna be a teen top model? Be B-A-R-B-I-E.” The company that makes Barbie, Mattel, has been upfront with their purpose for Barbie, “Barbie was originally created to be every little girl’s dream of the future.”

Mathis writes that Barbie was the first doll in American history to have a mature, adult body. Up to that point, girls had been playing with dolls looking like babies or unshapely “cabbage patch” type dolls. In creating an “adult” doll, Barbie set itself up as the role-playing doll. The entire purpose was for little girls to practice being adult—through their dolls. Similar to a virtual reality game today, girls were meant to explore what they could be through Barbies.

What happens though is that while a girl is playing out her future dreams, Barbie begins to influence the girl’s dreams for herself. One study found that “early exposure to [Barbie] dolls epitomizing an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image.” While the Mattel company says it is allowing girls to imagine all they can be, what it really does is set itself up as the standard for girls’ imaginings in regard to beauty, relationships, and even sexuality.

No Accident

Because Barbie is the standard for beauty, relationships, and sexuality, its commercials get to dictate what that standard is. It is no accident that Barbie is represented as the trendy, confident popular girl everyone wants to be. In commercial after commercial, Barbie is shown surrounded by friends and attractive to Ken. From parties, to the beach, to a Paris runway, Barbie’s commercials and website say there is virtue in looking and acting like this. Even “Career Barbie” praises these norms. The message these commercials send girls?

                       

            You need to look like this to be happy.

            You need to look like this to be popular.

            You need to look like this to be attractive.

And buy our product so you can have fun “role-playing” being Barbie.

But, what is perhaps saddest to me is that we have let Barbie dictate beauty norms even in mainstream culture. One study on the evolution of playboy photographs found that over time, Playboy models have begun to resemble Barbie dolls. In reality, Barbie is not just affecting little girls’ images of themselves, but men’s images of women also.

Barbie Image

I want to go beyond the cliché “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” answer girls are given when it comes to self-image. A girl’s view of beauty (and probably a guys view of himself for that matter) is not just a surface vanity. It goes deeper to the question, “Am I enough?”

When I’m most honest, I admit that the “Barbie image” has affected my view of myself. As a short brunette nowhere close to a Barbie figure, I sometimes wish I was taller, had longer legs, or had blue eyes. I wish I had flawless skin, perfect makeup, thick cascading hair, and perfect abs. The problem with that though is that even if I was those things, I would not have addressed the real concern. When I get worked up about my appearance, I’m really struggling with insecurity in who I am. I think, “If I just looked like that, I would be confident. If I just dressed like that, I would be in.”

But “in-ness” is never satisfying, even if you can achieve it. And frankly, it’s just exhausting. The answer is not in another human finding you enough that they let you into their club or ask your opinion, but that Jesus found you so enough he gave his life for you. “For God so loved the world….”

Barbie sets itself up as the epitome of teenage girl sexuality. But a girl will never find satisfaction and security in fulfilling Barbie’s standard for sexuality. The only true source of security is that Jesus Christ loved us so much he died for us. And if that’s not “being enough,” I don’t know what is.