You can change her outfit but you can’t comb her hair
Was it a good idea to
make a cancer Barbie? Do you blame the
manufacturer for keeping it off the shelf?
Read the first comment below the article for another perspective. Who do you agree with more? This is hardly the first time that Barbie
dolls have sparked a debate. Why do you
think Barbie generates so much controversy?
What’s important about Barbie, if anything?
I really like the idea of making a cancer Barbie. It might not help the older girls, but for little ones I imagine it is just the right help. For that, I admire Mattel. They heeded the call from their fans, which is pretty rare thing these days. I also understand their choice of not making the cancer Barbie public. They fear that it would hurt the reputation of their firm. Yeah, children don't really care about Mattel and can just ignore their hairless model, but their parents may be the problem. I can imagine caring mother trying to protect her little daughter from the horrors of the loveless world, cancer including. Now: how many such mothers are there? Mattel clearly thinks that many, and I would agree. Many is not a matter of number, but a matter of profit. They fear that release of bald model will harm their income, as “caring” mothers will raise a crusade against their products. The first comment is also relevant – not many mothers, even those who don't need to keep her little girl from all the possible horrors, won't probably buy it. It is just less attractive for a girl than regular one.
ReplyDeleteBarbie is an important doll, because it is probably the most famous one. I imagine many little girls want to be just like Barbie when they grow up. Later they start to differ (as they stop playing with it), but the Barbie lifestyle is still tempting. Who wouldn't want a big house, perfect spouse and any job you ever wanted? That's why Barbie is so popular – she is everything. I don't know if there is one, but I can imagine astronaut Barbie just fine. Also this cancer Barbie will probably affect kids that get it in their hands. Also – if Barbie can be everything good, there is a cancer Barbie, so girls with cancer may be good? That's pretty much the thought process of that 15 year old girl. I agree, but how make mothers buy this “hideous” doll? That's the question for modern commerce, which debates can not affect.
I completely disagree with Milan’s opinion. Bald Barbie is not there to show kids, with cancer that they are not different but to show little kids who can be harsh and judge the ones which don’t have hair that it’s normal and that it is a part of our world. I do agree with Milan, that the firm producing Barbie is scared to lose their popularity and they don’t know exactly, how people are going to react to the new bald Barbie. However, I think, when they would make partially a charity of it and say for example, that 10 percent of the price of a bald Barbie goes to kids with cancer, many people would buy it. Moreover, in the article it is mentioned that it has thousands of fans on Facebook and the number will increase so they are people which want to buy it.
DeleteFurthermore, I again disagree with Milan, saying that it’s a good thing that little kids want to be like Barbie when they grow up. I personally think, the whole skinny perfect Barbie thing is bad for the health of little kids. They want to be as Barbie so badly that they would do anything for it. That’s why, Barbie is one of the causes of anorexia and bulimia because according to the majority of people, she is perfect and logically, everybody wants to be perfect. Furthermore, kids who don’t have a figure which looks like a Barbie are bullied. If we want little kids to accept how different people look like and don’t judge them, we have to create tons of babies; for example, an overweight, one with acne, an Afro-American, a Native American and so on.
I think this whole thing is a bit weird. First of all, let's take a look at how it all started. Somebody creates a Facebook page that is liked by 150 000 people and they call it a campaign. What I think really happened was that 60% of the people only liked it because they read the title and thought it was interesting, 30% of the people might have given it around a minute of thought (or a minute of scrolling through the comments) and 9% might have actually thought it through and figured it was a great idea, but still I think that only one percent of all the people (if not less) actually checked whether, in the end, the idea was taken or not. (and I think I am still being an optimist when it comes to these estimates) So the amount of people seriously interested in the bald Barbie might have been around 1000. People liking a page is very far from what I would consider a serious campaign, because there has to be no commitment to the goal on the side of the people that like the page.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all I do not think the producers had much of a choice. How would they come off in the eyes of the public if they rejected the idea of a bald Barbie doll? And under the pretext that “nobody would buy it because they would consider it ugly”? Even discussing it is a very delicate topic to discuss. Nobody would want to openly disagree with the creation of a bald Barbie doll. So it is logical, that everybody would agree, because some social conventions would force them to. Eventually people might create the bald Barbie doll, despite the fact that most of the people are actually against it. Not to mention the fact that it should be the people that are bald that decide whether this is a good idea or not. They could be considered the only people to objectively decide the fate of such an idea and the problem of a Facebook page is that there is no dislike button that would enable them this anyway. I am very fond of all the people that try to help, but I do not like their approach to doing so. Nobody ever considers that such an idea might backfire. What if the bald people would find it offending? You can never know that without conducting research.
Let's assume for now, that all the above mentioned problems are magically solved and it all works. Why should the producers stop at a bald Barbie? Why not create a Barbie that is missing a leg? Or an arm? Or any combinations in which those two can come in real life? Maybe people might consider that to be a bit sadistic (or people that buy it might think it is a flaw in the packaging, causing the box to be missing a few parts of the doll). Anyway, I think that as these bald dolls are designed to make children accustomed to bald people, I think a person that is missing a limb would cause children much more psychological tension than a bald person. Why not try to help in that area?
It is all just an idea. Somebody starts a Facebook page and social conventions take care of the rest. Especially in this case, where people automatically agree with an idea like this since it's general idea is good.
I do agree with both Milan's and Simon's opinion. After reading both "sides of the page" I created my own idea about the issue of Mattel introducing bold Barbie. On one hand, I support Mattel’s idea. Barbie is a girl’s idol. When little girls that have cancer see that their idol doll is also bold, they may become more confident and accept their condition better. They may realize that not even Barbie is perfect. In my opinion, mothers of the girl that suffer from cancer would also appreciate if the market had to offer a special toy for their children suffering from cancer. Furthermore, I am not against the idea of Mattel distributing bold Barbie in hospitals. I also think that it is unlikely for other mothers with healthy girls to buy them. I think that the small children are too young to realize the point of having a bold Barbie. Therefore I think it would be better for Mattel to make the Barbie exclusively for children with cancer.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Simon on the problem with Facebook. I think that even without Facebook, bold Barbie would be introduced. If Mattel came up with this idea, and consider it as a good idea, than they should realize it. Moreover, I agree with Simon that a 'like" on Facebook can be relative. However, I think that if the post of Mattel introducing bold Barbie had resulted in a strong negative feedback from the side of Facebook users, it may be good if the company reconsidered their idea.