If Barbie had an Average Woman's Body....I don't think so

[Tropicana]

A wha' onoo tink bout dis?

Mi seh Long Blonde Hair and blue eyes....natural blondes mek up a miniscule percentage of the American and the world's population so nutten noh average bout dis. Why are blondes being rammed down everyone's throat?

What would Barbie look like if she were modeled after the average American woman?Very different, it turns out.
Artist Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com used CDC measurements of an average 19-year-old woman to create a 3-D model, which he photographed next to a standard Barbie doll. Lamm then photoshopped the 3-D model to make it look like a Barbie doll.
"If we criticize skinny models, we should at least be open to the possibility that Barbie may negatively influence young girls as well," Lamm said in an email to the Huffington Post. "Furthermore, a realistically proportioned Barbie actually looks pretty good."
Considering how peculiar a Barbie body would look in real life, Lamm concluded: "If there's even a small chance of Barbie in its present form negatively influencing girls, and if Barbie looks good as an average-sized woman in America, what's stopping Mattel from making one?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/01/normal-barbie-nickolay-lamm_n_3529460.html

[j-kid]

Mus bi ah slow day wen yuh hav Barbie inna yuh cross-hairs.

[Tropicana]

Yup!

I guess I should have added this to my old feature about Sexism in the Toy Box.

[Tuff Gong]

mus bi ah slow day wen yuh hav barbie inna yuh cross-hairs. :d

lol!

[Wahalla]

new Barbie got a rounded derrière...

[Tropicana]

new Barbie got a rounded derrière...

Like the average woman in America...the other Barbie was bogus and this one is too with de blonde hair and blue eyes.

[Tropicana]

pon Barbie. My mother was a wise woman. She never let me have a Barbie.

Believe it or not....a Black woman wrote this:

Barbie is still one of little girls’ favorite toys today. The typical Barbie has long, blond hair, a slim figure (upper body in proportion to the lower body), long, model-like neck and legs to match.

ab96837c8d2b007cce0dad5e4b644273.jpgblackbarbie.jpg

As a child, I had plenty of Barbie dolls to choose from, most of them resembled the “typical” Barbie. At that time, the black Barbie was rare and if you owned one, it looked like a dark-skinned original Barbie. The girls who did play with Barbies imitated the dolls in themselves; talking and dressing like her. It is interesting to see that women today, more commonly African American women, are now imitating this iconic doll. The question is: Is it healthy for black culture to attempt to mimic something that most of us cannot relate to?

Maybe over the past year or so, you have seen the common trend of black women portraying themselves as Barbie, even referring to themselves as Barbies. A lot of this started with the popular artist Nicki Minaj. Nicki Minaj’s image in the media is very bold. Her image is total black Barbie, but is this image truly realistic?

The original first African American Barbie was made 20 years ago after the first Caucasian Barbie had a very ethnocentric look. She was thin like all Barbies, but had an afro, long bold accessories, and a dress that split all the way up to her thigh. Most African-American women don’t have this picture perfect look.

What is THIS supposed to mean? :confused

As a fan of Nicki Minaj, Lyric Mark had a strong viewpoint on this topic. “I feel as American women in general, we like the unreal, we want to be unique and better than the rest. As black women, some of us will never be like those runway models or hot girls in the videos. When Nicki Minaj came out and was calling herself a Barbie, black women felt like she was them in a way, we wanted to be different and unique and have something other women didn’t have, we wanted to be the our vision of the black Barbie,” she says. We can clearly make our own vision of black Barbie, but society does not believe it that way. If you’re too curvy, you’re fat. There is a limit to how dark you can be—if you’re darker, you’ll be airbrushed lighter, and in most cases, long, blond or dirty blond hair is ideal. So are black women selling themselves short by attempting to be Barbie? We can accept the curves and voluptuous body, but the face has to be picture perfect. It shows how we are still insecure about ourselves to the media. Is this image healthy for young black girls coming along?

“It should fade away. At first it was something positive, showing young girls that they can too be just as beautiful and glamorous, but now it’s turned into something that doesn’t represent us anymore,”

Is Nicki Minaj’s marketing plan a misconception to black women? It can be. Or is it that women look at Barbie as a classy doll and they want to imitate that same elegance? There are those who are calling themselves Barbie, who go to the extreme, making their skin tone seem lighter, sporting a blond wig hanging down their back, and over-the-top makeup to illustrate the Barbie illuminated face.

Myself being an extremely tall girl with a caramel complexion, long hair and a petite figure, I was ridiculed for looking like a “white girl.” Family and friends constantly told me to eat more and to cut my hair. Then when I was around Caucasians, I would be called a supermodel or Barbie. I didn’t take it as a compliment at the time because I felt I should be curvier, but it’s interesting now to see black women call themselves Barbie, which is a look that is not truly supported by African American culture. Today, I constantly hear my peers say, “How can black women say they’re Barbie when they are fat with no hair. There’s even a Facebook group that states “Thou shall not call thyself Barbie, when thou look like Precious.”
Nicki Minaj has both sides of her audience attracted because to be a female rapper in the industry you have the vivacious look to keep black listeners listening, but she's been “Americanized,” Lyric says.

“She didn’t always look like that. She's become what they [industry] want her to be. America wants her to look like that [Barbie], because even though we know we are beautiful, we are still in America where beauty to them is something totally opposite. Her being lighter is more comfortable and acceptable; having blonde wigs is acceptable. It’s messed up but reality,” Lyric adds.

So, this infatuation with Barbie could be a trend that will soon pass, but it could also show how African American women need to accept who they are. All women of all races have different body types. For women to strive to be something that is unreachable, we are selling ourselves short. Less than half of women today look like Barbie and that fantasy we had to be like her should just be a childhood dream. As we mature and get older, we shouldn’t still be impersonating something that which was made simply to entertain us.

We all have insecurities, but they become clearer to the world when society sees us feeding into an image, especially Barbie. The first Barbie commercial debuted in 1959 and had a theme song that stated, “Barbie’s small and so petite, her clothes and figure look so neat….someday I’m going to be exactly like you, ‘till then I know just what I’ll do, Barbie, beautiful Barbie, I’ll make believe that I am you.”

We believe that this Barbie image is how women should be but realistically, no woman looks exactly like Barbie. We should just accept who we are and leave the childhood doll behind and just consider ourselves beautiful, black women.

[jah_yout]

I know I've said this a hundred times, but your obsession with all things blonde is downright creepy

[Tuff Gong]

i know i've said this a hundred times, but your obsession with all things blonde is downright creepy

lol!

[Tropicana]

I know I've said this a hundred times, but your obsession with all things blonde is downright creepy

No society's obsession with blondes is downright creepy. The fact that YOU don't have a problem with THAT but you have a problem with me bunning fiyah pon it speaks volumes.

[jah_yout]

No society's obsession with blondes is downright creepy. The fact that YOU don't have a problem with THAT but you have a problem with me bunning fiyah pon it speaks volumes.

o yu a bun fiya...ok my bad; on blondes? or on "society"

[Tropicana]

so you're just mirroring society's obsession? or deeeeeeeep inside you want to be a blonde....do you own any blonde wigs?

Read my lips. I am bunning fiyah pon society's obsession. The fact that you as a supposedly conscious Black man would have a problem with that is somewhat puzzling but not unusual. After all, there are many men who talk a good game about being conscious but their behaviour and taste in women does not reflect that. They talk Black but worship White women. I recall hearing that, when he was in Toronto, Rosie Douglas used to talk Black but sleep White. Some said this was idle gossip but years later it became evident that he had fathered at least one child with a White woman (I can't recall if there were more).

As for your stupid question about whether or not I want to be blonde, I would suggest you address this question to the myriad of Black women who dye their hair blonde, own blonde wigs, and put in blonde weaves. I have never been and I will never be one of them. You won't have to look far. You will find some of them among your fellow boardites.


I note that you have changed your comment. This new statement is puzzling.

o yu a bun fiya...ok my bad; on blondes? or on "society"

Makes me wonder if you have slept with or are married to some blonde. You said you have never slept with a White woman but I am inclined not to accept that at face value given the fact that you have a problem with me bunning fiyah pon dis blondie business.

This is the 4th time I am answering your question. Perhaps I did not make it clear enough so let me make it easier for you.

Read my lips. I am bunning fiyah pon society's obsession with and worship of blondes.

[jah_yout]

I note that you have changed your comment. This new statement is puzzling

yes I mis-read the post at first; you say society is obsessed with blondes...which is true...but something can only grow if you feed into it; "society" influences & creates mindsets in the public & this society has raised blonde, thin women as the epitome of beauty...it is propped up by all who feed into it...I couldn't care less about blondes or any other hair color for that matter...a blonde can't help the way she was born so I could never burn fire on a one for the way their creator made them...if a one buys blonde hair they are just feeding into what society told them is the most valuable...similar to the way afrikan women run down European beauty standards...but to me, if yu gwine bun fire pon blondes then yu haffi bun fire pon crème & weaves...but I don't see you doing that; how is one any more worthy of fire than the other?

[jah_yout]

Makes me wonder if you have slept with or are married to some blonde.

answer is no on both counts...and your wondering is quite creepy...as if I needed to have slept with ort married a blonde to think that being obsessed with them is creepy...

You said you have never slept with a White woman but I am inclined not to accept that at face value given the fact that you have a problem with me bunning fiyah pon dis blondie business.

you are free to think what you want so why even ask a question if you can't accept the answer?? I have to sleep with white women to be disturbed by obsession with blondes by a "black" woman? it is very strange indeed...seek your own beauty instead of worrying about who thinks what is beautiful...it's mind control

[Tropicana]

yu haffi bun fire pon crème & weaves

If you haven't seen me do that then clearly you haven't looked very hard or read many of my posts.....

For starters:

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/showthread.php?70607-Braids-Natural-Hair-Issues-The-root-of-the-problem

and

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/showthread.php?67229-Blonde-Doesn-t-Always-Work

and there have been MANY more over the years.

If you truly believed this and had not bought into it yourself, you would have NO problem with me bunning fiyah gainst any of this"

you say society is obsessed with blondes...which is true...but something can only grow if you feed into it; "society" influences & creates mindsets in the public & this society has raised blonde, thin women as the epitome of beauty...it is propped up by all who feed into it...I couldn't care less about blondes or any other hair color for that matter...a blonde can't help the way she was born so I could never burn fire on a one for the way their creator made them...if a one buys blonde hair they are just feeding into what society told them is the most valuable...similar to the way afrikan women run down European beauty standards

I will continue to bun fiyah and you are not going to intimidate me into stopping.

It is interesting that you have time fe bother me and I never even once see you bunning fiyah pon de man dem weh post pickcha a white women and seh dem hot.......and there have been MANY of those over the years. I've never seen you bun fiyah pon White minded African American or Jamaican athletes or celebrities who run dung White women either.

Speaks volumes......