To think that Barbie advert can piss off?

[TammySwansonTwo]

Starts with a small girl giving a lecture to a room full of adults, then switches to showing her actually playing with barbies. Then says something about how when you're playing with Barbie you can be anything you want to be.

Huh, really? Like something other than an anatomically inaccurate sexualised image of a woman? DFOD.

Anyone seen it?

[honeysucklejasmine]

My thoughts exactly.

[MrsJayy]

Barbie is a doll she has been everything from a model to a Dr are you saying girls who play with Barbie are blinded by her out of proportion boobs and that makes girls a bit dim?

[TammySwansonTwo]

What a bizarre comment.

I'm saying that forcing not only unrealistic but biologically impossible standards of beauty on to very young children is disgraceful, and that wrapping it up in a "be whatever you want to be" message is insulting.

[Moanyoldcow]

I quite like it actually.

I loved Barbies at a child. I loved dressing them and doing their hair. I also liked my chemistry set and boardgames and reading.

I am an accountant now. My love of Barbie as a child did not make me think that I had to look just like the doll.

I agree that the imagery of Barbie is out-dated and not the most healthy one for small children but I think that the advert does quite a nice job of showing children can be creative and imaginative play takes lots of forms.

[RunningOutOfCharge]

Not really a ‘bizarre’ comment at all

[MrsJayy]

I had 1 dd who loved Barbie she is an adult woman now and under no illusions that Barbies iwaist s anything to aspire too

[Barbiesears]

Kids don't see the strange proportions that barbies have though. They see a doll. Do children who play with lalaloopsy dolls grow up wanting big black buttons for eyes?

[ChocolateButton15]

My lo LOVES Barbie! She knows it's a doll and I don't see the sexuslised woman link. She doesn't associate them or compare them to real women. There is now loads of different body shapes and different height Barbies!

[MrsJayy]

Barbie is a toy for playing with she had a pink house with a pink beetle and a unicorn horse or did it fly I can't remember it is just play make believe.

[MrsJayy]

Dd was also into bratz & monster high and lego and starwars girls can and do play with other toys.

[sundayfeeling]

I like it too.
My DD has Barbies and plays with them sometimes. She also plays with Lego, builds train sets and does a lot of arts and crafts. At the moment she wants to be an artist (a painter) when she grows up. it might be a doctor next.
When she plays with Barbies they do indeed take on different characters and roles. She knows they are toys and she does not aspire to look like them.
Children learn more from parents as to standards to beauty.

[TammySwansonTwo]

It's not about whether they are consciously aware of it or not. I'm actually quite surprised this needs to be explained!

[MrsJayy]

Children learn more from parents as to standards to beauty

^^ I agree with

[MadMags]

Dd loves Barbie and has somehow managed to cotton on to the fact that she’s a doll and not a real representation of the human form.

Clearly, she’s a genius.

She also wants to be a vet and doesn’t for a second think she can’t be one.

[strangeEvents]

I like it.

I understand that you may feel the need to be offended but most of us manage without it.

I am intrigued as to how Barbie is sexualised though.

[MrsJayy]

Tammy are you usually so condescending or just about Barbie dolls

[MadMags]

Because she has breast, Strange. Apparently.

[MrsJayy]

I am sure Barbie has been a vet seriously she is multi talented

[TammySwansonTwo]

Ooh, burn.

Come on. Is it really a mystery that being surrounded by unrealistic standards of beauty, absorbed subconsciously as well as explicitly, is detrimental to girls? That's not exactly a revelation is it?

I suppose you also think that those supermarket t shirts where the girls says "little princess" and the boys says "little genius" or some such rubbish are "just t shirts"?

I'm just a little bemused that, with everything happening in the world at the moment in this area, people can be so blinkered about the messages we are sending our children. That's not patronising, that's legitimate surprise.

[MadMags]

She was a vet!

[NerrSnerr]

I wasn’t allowed to play with Barbies as a child for this very reason (that she was a bad role model because of her boobs or something) I do feel a bit resentful that my mum didn’t give me enough credit to figure out myself that I do not need to look like Barbie and that she is just a toy.

I don’t see how being allowed Barbies would have made any difference to how I grew up- they’re just toys. Interestingly I was allowed to watch Baywatch as a teen and I didn’t grow up thinking I need to look like Pamela.

[TammySwansonTwo]

Oh yeah. It's because she has breasts.

Ugh.

[MadMags]

I suppose you also think that those supermarket t shirts where the girls says "little princess" and the boys says "little genius" or some such rubbish are "just t shirts"?

No, I think they’re poisonous, gendered shit.

Incidentally 4 year old nephew plays with Barbie with my dd. He wants to be a paleontologist.

He also plays with Spider-Man. Are you worried that young boys are being brainwashed into having unrealistic body expectations because, I have to tell you, Spider-Man is buff as fuck.

[MrsJayy]

I don't think i dressed my daughters in slogan t shirts or dressed them in impractical frilly clothes either.

[MrsJayy]

Spiderman is buff as fuck

HA !