The Negative Impact Of Plastic Dolls: The Making Of Barbie

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Barbie's image through the shape of her body and all of her accessories is beginning to lead to many issues in our world. Barbie is portraying a negative impact on society through her influential being as a plastic doll. In 1965 the slumber party package was on the market showing buyers how straight forward she is with her products and accessories. The package had all of the normal slumber party things like a robe, comb, and hair rollers but it also had a weight scale set at a permanent weight of "110" and a disturbing book on weight loss that read in all caps, "DON'T EAT." This package is an example of how misleading Barbie and her products really are because it is implying to children that they should not eat and that if they grow up …show more content…

The GI Joe doll portrays the image of a man in the military. He dresses in camouflage and carries around guns. Wagner-Ott describes the GI Joe doll as a "...butch version of Barbie with the same realism and detail, but applied to the toy soldier concept" (249). Considering Barbie's beautiful looks and countless perfect accessories, the GI Joe doll can relate to her. He has defined muscles, a smooth tan, and all of his accessories fit him perfectly. These two dolls display sexist attitudes in many ways. Barbie only moves in five different places, her neck, shoulders, and top of her legs, whereas, GI Joe can move in twenty-one different places. The movements of the dolls show that the male can be more active and mobile, but the female is restricted to a perfect posture and cannot do much outside. Even though Barbie has many career options varying from a nurse to a firefighter most of them she is not even physically capable of. Wagner-Ott states in her journal, "Because dolls and action figures are emotionally close to children's lives, they can become the source for discovering and analyzing how popular everyday objects help construct "students" sense of identity, politics and culture" (252). Children are beginning to see these dolls like Barbie and GI Joe and want everything they have to feel like they can be

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