Barbie and Girls’ Body Image – What’s Wrong with Realism?

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By now, you have heard that Mattel has tried to diversify its long-time bestselling doll, Barbie, in response to criticism her impossible proportions negatively affect young girls’ body images.

If you read my blog at all, you know I have linked the plastic doll to the super thin plastic “ideal” body seen in every Hollywood film, on the fashion runways, and in advertising.

Almost sixty years ago, Barbie was modeled literally from the original dollmaker’s 12-year-old son’s body – wide shoulders, narrow hips, otherworldly long legs and neck – and then a pair of large fake breasts were appended.

Mattel didn’t cave in and change Barbie because of the collateral damage to females. Instead, they changed the 57-year-old doll due to lowered sales in a world where women have effectively (finally!) rejected the anorexic ideal in favor of reflecting realistic shapes and sizes of females.

It can’t be argued many women have measured themselves against this superthin image, with disastrous results like food addiction, anorexia, disordered eating, bulimia. A recent study published in Psychology Today showed 91% of women were dissatisfied with their bodies, with almost 80% saying they were too heavy, when only about 60% of all women are overweight.
Swimsuit Issue 2016

The focus on thin in media has been changing. Who cares if Angelina Jolie can subsist on 600 calories a day? No one is watching her movies, because they are seriously awful, which is why she has to do such outrageous things to get publicity these days.

The public is much more engaged with Amy Schumer, who is seriously funny, and hasn’t abandoned her body to Hollywood’s makeover artists. And with Kim Kardashian’s curvy derriere. And they are fascinated with the sexy new Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Ashley Graham. (Photo by James Macari/from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue on sale now.)

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Oprah Wants Your Money (and Self Worth) For a Dying Weight Watchers

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Much as been written about Oprah Winfrey buying Weight Watchers‘ stock for $40 million dollars and, in just a few days, tripling that investment, when stocks rose.

On the surface, like most media blitzes, the numbers look impressive.

And comics and cartoonists had fun with the idea that Oprah would make MORE money to add to her billions:

oprahcartoon

But beyond the media blitz and the jokes, there is something much more insidious and disappointing about this shoddy deal.

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Rebel Wilson as Positive Body-Image Leader in Pitch Perfect 2

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It may be hard to believe, but the push for body diversity in media’s portrayal of women started over twenty years ago.

In the 1990s, plus size beauty Emme became the first model to earn a supermodel salary at a size 16 or 18. Despite two decades, change seemed to be crawling slowly until Australian actress Rebel Wilson lit up the screen in the Pitch Perfect movies.

Advertising has embraced race and sexual identity more easily than age or size. However, women of varying sizes and shapes are slowly creeping into advertising, the runway, and even movies.

I was eagerly awaiting the release of “Pitch Perfect 2”, to see the irrepressible actress who gravitates towards playing women with high self-esteem and a wicked sense of humor.

RebelI love her. I love her character’s insistence: “I’m the hot one.”

And, she IS most definitely the the hot one.

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