I Know She's a Doll.

A critique on the article 'Academics Like to Play with Barbies, Too' by Julia Griffin.

P.S. I'm sorry if it's too academically boring - it was a school paper for English. Just to prove that I can write a more refined form of ranting than what is normally on this blog.

I Know She's a Doll.
Edited by Mr Q and L.S.

The Barbie doll is proof that we can say one thing and do another - after all the criticism of Barbie's 1 in 100,000 body that would supposedly suffer from chronic diarrhoea, they still fly off the shelves fifty years after the original dumb blonde was invented - two a second, no less. And because last time I checked three to seven year old girls don't have the resources to fork up ten dollars on a piece of plastic, it must be the adults who are buying this toy that has proven to have disturbing effects on the average girl's self esteem and eating habits. But apparently being an all-American Made in China icon trimps all, as Julia Griffin writes in her article 'Academics Like to Play With Barbies, Too'. In her article Julia Griffin attempts to remain neutral between the pros and cons of the world's bestselling toy, but her use of language either deliberately or accidentally dismisses all the disturbing statistics she brings up.

Julia Griffin's contradictory article begins with the title 'Academics Like to Play With Barbies, Too' - the use of the word 'academic' implies that the article is an observation of the Barbie phenomenon from a purely objective, factual view. However, it alsp presents the 'academics' as the neutral party, represented by the author, separating herself from the 'feminists and public campaigns' she describes as 'attacking' Barbie despite her popularity. She also says that West Virginia Democrat Jeff Eldridge's proposal to ban the sale of Barbie and 'other similarly unrealistic dolls' because they 'place an undue importance on physical beauty to the detriment of the intellectual and emptional development' is a 'threat'. By using negative language on Barbie critics she subtly establishes herself as being pro-Barbie despite her neutrality.

Grifin then goes on to analyse the body stats of Barbe that has the 'feminists and public campaigns' worried, but only after she states that 'Barbie has hardly been known for a physically attainable appearance', effectively marginalizing any criticism she's going to heap on the world's favourite piece of plastic. She also only focuses on Barbie's measurements prior to the 1997 makeover - in which Mattel modified the barbie mould so that she would 'better fit in to modern fashion' - and so referst to all the measurements in the past tense. This gives the idea that the disturbing statistics are a thing of the past, and that the neo-Barbie is not as extreme. This is further extended by the use of the word 'historic' before she claims that Barbie's waistline is, proportionally, 39 percent smaller than the average anorexic patient. After writing that Barbie's fat-to-body-weight ratio was 'way below the 17 percent required to menstruate', she then jokes 'perhaps this explains why she's never had kids', brushing away what would be a very serious problem had Barbie been a live person. By contrasting the ugly facts with dismissive and past tense language, Griffin puts forward the impression that she is worred about the Barbie statistics, but is instead dismissing them as a 'thing of the past' - much like we would dismiss a barbaric chapter of history as 'been there, done that'.

Griffin goes on to state that 'physical attributes aside, whether Barbie truly poses a detrimental threat to girls' physical and emptional development is still under debate'. She says that on one hand, Barbie is 'pretty and apparently anorexic', but on the other, 'she is alsp presented as a smart, loveable woman with limitless goals and opportunities'. Whilst this is an attempt to contrast a positive with a negative, they are connected and are all part of the Feminists Problem With The Barbies - Barbie doesn't present two separate messages of 'anorexia' and 'success', but connects them - telling girls that 'you have to be skinny to be successful'. This is further reinforced by Barbie's unrealistically successful life - becoming a teacher, surgeon, veterinarian, astronaut, U.S. Air Force Thunderbird pilot, Canadian Mountie and independent presidential candidate in the space of fifty years, a fact that is inadverdently highlighted in Griffin's flawed analysis of Barbie. By separating a negative Barbie issue into a pro and a con, the article gives the appearance of an even-handed judgement of the Barbie craze.

The article then quotes a psychologist finding that girls aged between 5 and 71/2 exposed to Barbie were more likely to have a lower body esteem and a greater desire for a thin body than girls exposed to the 'more realistic' Emme doll, but that the situation is reversed in girls older than 71/2, where negative self esteem issues were associated with the size-sixteen Emme doll instead of the size-two Barbie doll. This is justified as being an example of the desire to be thin internalized inside the mind of a child, and that realistic body figures only reinforce this desire to be thin, rather than reversing it. Griffin's use of quotation marks around the word 'realistic' when referring to the Emme doll casts the realism of the doll in doubt, and the findings of this improperly-referenced experiment are used to transfer the blame of poor self esteem from the Barbie doll to the phenomenon of 'internalizing the skinny desire'. The experiment is then dismissed entirely in the next paragraph, by quoting another, more recent psychology finding that could not directly blame Barbie for any body image issues, thus cancelling out the findings of the previous experiment, and stating that scientists have linked negative body image to the beauty ideals of the media as a whole. By quoting psychological experiments the article appears to be basing its argument on 'academics' and 'fact', but by interpreting and then dismissing the psychological findings and diffusing the blame to other factors of low self esteem it instead presents more information in favour of the harmlessness of the Barbie doll.

The author then presents two further experiments, this time blatantly in favour of Barbie-like dolls - that they reinforce gender roles and social values, and that the phenomenon of older girls destroying their Barbie dolls neutralizes the negative effects Barbie dolls may impose, as destroying Barbie dolls is seen as a sign of rejecting Barbie's perfection. by scientifically justifying the article's bias, the article remains a facade of neutrality despite all the evidence against Barbie being neutralized and all evidence in favour of Barbie being highlighted.

The article never explicicitly states specific arguments against the Barbie trend, or presents subject-specific arguments against the 'feminists' that are 'attacking Barbie'. Instead, all criticism is negated by the author's argument that Barbie 'remains a cultural icon of America and the world, beloved by girls and collectors alike', by appealing to the power of the masses - if they all do it, it must be good. Julia Griffin's article 'Academics Like to Play With Barbies, Too' is an example of a poorly-disguised defence of something that is not being judged, but championed by not only Griffin, but the world over. Griffin's use of persuasive and misleading language subconsciously makes us think that hey, the Barbie isn't really so bad after all.

But the final nail in the coffin for the argument against the hypocrisy, unrealism and sinister negative impacts of Barbie is the line that the article finishes with:

'she's a doll, people...'

Copyright 2011 Lady Solitaire. No part of the above work may be reproduced without written permission from the author.

See! You've been conned all this time! Lol.

Click here for the original article.

BTW, I don't know the author wrote the article personally and this isn't a personal attack on her career or her writing. A student's gotta do what a student's gottta do...to get 99%.