Barbie Sociology

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A media text that communicates the values and meanings of gender and race circulating within culture at any one time is the animated Barbie films. Barbie has a particularly sizable following, holding vast influence in popular culture and ideologies. Barbie has long been accredited with a strong power over shaping presumptions towards gender roles. It communicates repressive ideologies that are gynocentric and display ‘traditional’ hegemonic gender stereotypes that have been linked to eating disorders, cosmetic surgery addictions, and the sexualisation of children. Nevertheless, the films also represent empowerment of women in their career paths and promotes individuality.

Barbie is a cultural icon of female beauty that provides both as an …show more content…

The probability for a woman to have the same body shape as barbie is less than 1 in 100,000, (Norton 287), making it an inappropriate representation of the female gender and detrimental to the mental health of young girls consuming this type of media, given that many take inspiration from her character as she seemingly portrays a perfect life, leading children to develop eating disorders in the future. “These dolls are just a fragment of a much wider culture in which young women are encouraged to see their sexual allure as their primary passport to success” (Walter 5). Many critics say that Barbie represents impossible ideals of physical perfection that her anatomically incorrect body shape, decreases young girls’ self-esteem leading them to succumb to the pressure placed upon them by theses ideals and develop mental health issues such eating disorders, anxiety, and depression (Dittmar 290). Through the medias portrayal of the female body women are taught to be unhappy in their bodies from birth till death and that being thinner is better and is something that females should aspire to. It teaches young girls that to be perfect, you must have a thin and tall body shape. Four out of five 10-year-olds say that they're afraid of being fat. 42% of girls in first through third grade wish they were thinner. With, half of girls aged 9 or 10 claiming that they feel better about themselves when they're dieting (“Eating Disorder Statistics”). This is the danger such a widespread brand promoting such a minority of all body types, as at a young age girls are exposed to an unrealistic body type which many strive to achieve as to them it is what they have been taught and grown up with as the perfect body

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