In January, Mattel released a new line of evolved Barbie dolls. The collection includes dolls of varied body shapes: in addition to “original,” you can now purchase a “curvy,” “petite,” or “tall” Barbie. The girls also come in different ethnicities, as identified by varying hair color, skin color, and even eye shape.
There’s been more controversy over the new, ethnically and physically varied dolls than I would’ve expected. An article from The Guardian revealed that kids were more fascinated with the bright colors of the Barbies’ clothing than anything else. One girl liked the “curvy” model because she was bigger, and easier to hold than the skinnier ones, but I doubt that’s what Mattel had in mind when they designed these.
How do you make a doll that ignores beauty standards? According to many college students interviewed by USA Today, Mattel didn’t go far enough, and the new evolution certainly came too late. Some female students claimed that their standards for beauty had already been affected during their childhood with the unrealistically-shaped Barbie doll. One even said that the doll needed to be eliminated completely because of its objectification of women. I don’t doubt that a toy can have power, especially one that is such a traditional symbol for young girls all over the world. These conversations and changes are important, and necessary in a society that is starting to identify the dangers of endorsing specific standards for beauty. But should we be focusing all our attention on a doll, something most girls drop by age ten?
Recent news that I find even more revolutionary than Barbie’s “curvy” doll is the bill that was passed in France right before the end of 2015. According to Vogue, the bill declared that “models working it the country must possess a medical certificate deeming them fit to work,” in an effort to prevent overly-skinny models from being used. It also required that “digitally altered images” be labeled, particularly images that alter the size of the model’s silhouette. Of course, opposition claimed that beauty standards were in the hands of advertisers, designers and photographers, and had nothing to do with the models. But if you think about the influence models currently have over masses of teenage girls via social media, having excessively skinny body types around becomes a very scary thing. Kendall Jenner is considered one of today’s models of the moment, and she has 48.9 million followers on Instagram. I doubt she can go to the bathroom without being photographed, interrogated, and- most importantly- idolized. Today’s up-and-coming models are more influential than ever before because, not only do we see them wearing makeup and heels on the runway, but we see what they ate for breakfast, what their pajamas look like, and how many pets they have. Not only are models more personable, but they’re easier to compare to real people.
Barbie may be an icon, but I knew that she was a fake toy. I would never have those weirdly shaped eyes, that terrible yellow-blonde hair, or that weird printed underwear. When it comes to people like Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, or Cara Delevingne, I can go online, and find out weird facts about them (Cara’s favorite new app lets you morph into an Oscar-winning Leonardo DiCaprio, for example) that make them much more life-like, and not just pretty bodies on a runway. The line between realistic beauty standards and model-perfection is blurred because the models are no longer distant to us. If their lives are normal and accessible, why can’t I look like that too? Why can’t I be white and tall and thin?
The new Barbies are great, but they’re not going to solve all the problems we have regarding societal beauty standards. They’re made of plastic. If we want growing girls to know that they are beautiful no matter what they look like, we need our human role models to come in “curvy,” “petite,” and “tall” too, and we also need them to have varied skin colors and eye shapes. Before you trash the new Barbie evolution, look around you and notice what still isn’t evolving. We need to get our priorities in order.