Realistic "Barbie"

[Ellie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazin ... r-26465106

Doll created intended to look like a real woman.

What are your thoughts?

For perspective, this is how a real woman would look with Barbie's proportions:

But then proportion skewing is nothing new. It's big in anime and other cartoons, it's rampant in wargaming, etc, for various reasons. Barbie is not special in this, although it is an extreme case.

 

[Sparx-1]

I can understand why people are worried about Barbie promoting a negative self-image in girls, but then again, I don't think it's as real of a danger as so many people crack it up to be. The problem isn't so much the doll itself as much as it is modern media picking a specific stereotype and calling it 'beautiful' rather than promoting the actual fact that beauty is relative to the observer.

I respect the effort, but making a doll that looks like the average woman isn't gonna help anything, it's just going to be ignored. Giving a broader range of women more screen-time, on the other hand, probably could account for something in the long run, but as deeply entrenched as "stick-thin-blonde-with-huge-boobs" is in our society, it could take a while.

All in all, I believe that beauty has more to do with an individual's perception than adherence to a standard. Doing that is like saying mayonnaise is "delicious" and should be so to everyone, when I know some people who loathe the taste of the stuff and prefer mustard, which in turn is disgusting to other people, and so on. Even if only one person in the world thinks someone is beautiful, then they're beautiful.

 

[coyotecraft]

At least before Barbie had impossible proportions that nobody could achieve. I can see girls feeling even more pressure and insecure about body image from this. Calling it realistic proportions makes it more likely to be interpreted as "This is what woman look like. This is what I should look like."

But I don't really believe Barbie has as much of an impact on body image. That's all on TV and Magazines.

 

[Ellie]

Well, I believe the first is based on the average proportions of all women, whereas Barbies are physically impossible (but still have replicable features - huge breasts, long, thin legs, a very narrow waist, etc). I agree it's kind of saying "this is what you should look like", but Barbies are saying that anyway, when they're full of diversity but only in that body shape.

I still think it's interesting to have a doll based on proportions that could actually exist. But then I've always been a fan of Matchbox cars over Hotwheels for that reason.

 

[Xilef]

I'm pretty sure barbie was a stick insect so you could fit all those clothes on the doll without it bloating up the overall size of the doll.
In real-life, clothes are pretty thin compared to on a doll where they would be considered thick, imagine wearing a shirt with material as thick as your hand?