According the almighty wikipedia, Barbie is 48 years old today!
Ever since Barbie was introduced in the America International Toy Show in 1959, it has been one of the best selling toy of all time. Almost every girl has at least one barbie sometime in their life.
There is quite a few problems with barbie though, let's talk about unrealistic Barbie may project as a female image. If she were a real person, she would be 7"2, 130 pounds, 48-23-36, I am pretty sure that is not possible for a human female.
Maybe, Barbie represents the Chauvinism in our society. I remember Lisa Simpson was trying to point out that her doll was derogatory to women. Also as pointed out in Aqua's top hit back in the 90's, Barbie likes to shop and hosts pizza parties.
Barbie, combine with yesterday's article on "24" which said women still make only about 70% salary to their male counterparts made me realize something. The media, the society still have certain expectations of women (and men). Many are just wrong, but until the commercials/tv shows with dumb/overweight men and slim/hot/multipurpose women change, the barbism is here to stay.
Btw, important info of the day, Barbie is taiwanese! That is right, Mattel had its first Barbie plant in Tai-Shan county in Taiwan. The Barbie plant has since relocated long time ago (maybe to a country with child labours?), but the Barbie culture is still in. Villagers still have "Barbie meets" every month to show off their designer clothes.
Happy Bday day, Barbie! Your plastic implants don't look a day old!
5 comments:
Goodness me, this brings back HUGE memories from summer 2005 when I was slaving away preparing huge writeups and press releases an freaking Barbie from Taishan county...
Now random Taiwanese Barbie factoids are lodged permanently in my brain... such as: did you know that the eyelashes were hand-painted one by one in Taiwan? Or that the hair was originally curled with chopsticks over the hot steam of a rice cooker? Or that MeiNing (the factory Mattel contracted) employed over 1/3 of the town's population?
Gah! Look what you made me start! ;)
Hum.....I watched a TW tourist TV series introducing the Barbie history of Taishan county months ago. It reminded me that I used to collect some special editions of them. I remember that I showed you before.
Long time no see. Everything is all right in TW. Congrats to you find ur MMS.
hi ms. m! long time no see~ hope things are well with your GMAT. btw, who is taking care of your place in burnaby?
chopsticks and rice cooker... how stereotypical is that for asian cultural? :)
Neat! Two birds with one stone using the rice cooker to make money AND food ^_^ How come I did not learn this bit of information when I volunteered for the Barbei exhibition in 2005...
Sherry:
Omg you were at the Barbie exhibit?? Do I know you???
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