Barbie Girl

First off, there is something wrong with either my hands or brain today because I keep typing letters in the incorrect order. Is it possible to become dyslexic? Anywho, I wanted to discuss a fantastic book I recently finished by Tanya Lee Stone entitled "The Good, The Bad, and The Barbie." It's a non-fiction book written for teens about the history of Barbie and her impact on society, particularly on girls and body image. I found this book fascinating for many reasons: 1) I was a Women's Studies major and thus have been forced to look at my relationship with Barbie before; 2) I had a pretty large collection of Barbies (let's not forget this awesome post), in part because my sister is six years younger and I continued playing well past acceptable Barbie-playing age, and 3) I had body image issues. Barbie has been present throughout my life, whether playing with her as a child, taking eerie photos of Barbie in odd scenarios for high school photography class (see below), or watching the brilliantly disturbing film "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" by Todd Haynes in college (you can find it on Youtube here. His use of Barbies is legendary, and rightly so).

Here are a few of my high school photos. These aren't the final prints, but for a quick search in my house they were all I could find. The lighting, printing, and focus were a lot better in the actual prints. I hope.

This was a series. The Barbies are drinking and driving, see? There were also crash pictures.

Barbie snow angels. I don't remember taking this one.

Barbie head hunters! I made the little skirts and tops out of grocery bags.

I had another series of a funeral and wake (open casket), but I can't find those. For the best, probably. My favorite photo is of all my (and my sister's) Barbies together for a family portrait. So lifelike!

At the moment, I am not so interested in dissecting my relationship with Barbie from the body image standpoint. I am, however, fascinated by Stone's discussion of the way girls played with their Barbies. There was a hilarious section about the perverted use of Barbie and how she and Ken unromantically bumped their plastic bodies together. Of course my friends and I played that way. But how else did I play? That's where things grow foggy. The book highlights stories of grown women remembering their Barbie-playing youth, how some of them liked to do pretend weddings, while others simply changed their clothes. Others created elaborate story lines involving mystery and intrigue. So how did I play with my Barbies? And why can't I remember? The only Julie Barbie plot line that keeps coming back to me is the Beauty Pageant; but all I remember from that is laying out an elaborate array of fantastic gifts and prizes for the winner. What was I doing with my Barbies all that time? I'm hoping some of my old friends will read this and help me out. Is it bad that I blocked out my Barbie-playing periods? Is there some meaning behind that? The legacy of the doll continues...