| Sajha.com Archives | |
| Username | Post |
| protean | Posted
on 10-Dec-02 01:47 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,855894,00.html Size matters Barbie's beauty is that she's a fantasy. So what's the point of a size 16 'Emme' doll? Barbara Ellen Sunday December 8, 2002 The Observer Politically correct parents rejoice. A size-16 Barbie-style doll went on sale this week. Her name is Emme and she looks like an RE teacher on a rare night out. It's hard to look at Emme without feeling slightly dismayed about what middle age will bring for us all. Emme's face is deliciously pretty, her hair is styled, but after that it's all spreading hips, brave spangled tops and a coat trailing down to the floor. Emme doesn't ooze glamour, she oozes 'cruise ship', she oozes Woman's Own makeover. You look at Emme's feet and you just know her shoes are pinching her, but it's that long coat which really gives the game away. It's the 'slimming' kind favoured by women going through a 'big' patch (who hasn't?) and who need, as Trinny and Susannah might say, to 'draw attention away from their problem areas'. The question is, why is a doll designed to celebrate the fuller, more realistic figure dressed up like a 45-year-old mother of four who thinks she has 'problem areas'? Moreover, how can anyone seriously expect little girls to want to play dreamy, glamorous games with Emme when their first instinct would be to cuddle up to that matronly bust and ask for a glass of Ribena? What has happened, what sour warping has occurred in popular culture, when a little girl's glamour doll has to resemble her frumpy aunt to get itself popped into the chattering-class Christmas stocking? No one is saying that size-16 women can't look gorgeous - I have size-16 friends so drop-dead glamorous they would only wear Emme's awful clothes to do the dusting in the dark. Nor is anyone suggesting that the makers of Barbie weren't naughty to give her the dimensions of a twiglet with two balloons stuck on top and have her stand on tippy-toes for a plastic eternity. That said, I have yet to meet the girl-child who stands in front of mirrors sobbing like a disenfranchised prom queen because she doesn't measure up against Barbie. By the time young girls are old enough to care, their Barbies have long since been consigned to the dustbin of childish things. It's only parents who get excited about Barbie as a 'Bad Thing', a flaxen-haired gorgon of future eating disorders. To smart little girls, she is merely another dolly, a mass-manufactured catalyst for their fantasy world. Sometimes I think people aren't so much against Barbie as they are against beautiful slim young women per se, not anxious that their children will get unrealistic ideas about beauty, but embarrassed about their own lack of it. So here's Emme, a token fat doll, just as Sophie Dahl was a token fat model back in the days when she was universally patronised as the larger catwalk queen. In the real world, where people aren't quite so drearily hypercritical, do little girls really need 'fat' dolls to appreciate different body shapes in women? Can't they be trusted to notice the world around them, and realise that there are fewer Kate Mosses around than there are women like their mum, who wear stomach-flattening tights to go out and elasticated trousers when they think no one's looking? If not, maybe we shouldn't stop at making Barbie and Emme more realistic. Give Tiny Tears colic, the Teletubbies acne. Play Monopoly, explaining throughout in a droning monotone that you can't really buy Mayfair for a few hundred quid, not in today's overheated house market. And then after all that, maybe, just maybe, we can all turn our attention to the boys' toys. It seems significant to me that the only time boys' toys are moaned about is when they are violent. Nobody ever complained that Action Man was giving little boys unrealistic notions of male bodies, which don't always have moulded six-packs and macho scarring on one cheek. Nobody ever griped at Action Man's jeeps and gadgets, even though men they knew were more likely to wear Next jeans and drive Volvos. Even odder, in a world where anxiety-induced male suicide is on the rise, particularly among young males terrified of failure, nobody has ever attacked toys like Action Man, or seemed in any way concerned that they might be warping the expectations of little boys. And that's maybe because people automatically assume that boys can be trusted to separate fantasy from reality, unlike girls, silly fluffy little things who don't know the difference between a doll and a human being. Surely that's where dolls like Emme come in - a plaything that has no play about it because it's too busy banging home the obvious ('Play with me, I'm fat, like you'll be one day!'). And that's why some of us look at Emme and consider that sometimes PC 'reality checks' can be the most dangerous fantasy of all. barbara.ellen@observer.co.uk |
| protean | Posted
on 11-Dec-02 04:23 PM
Does being Politically Correct confound Reality? In some cases it does. Are we living in a world and societies where being PC is the more accepted approach of living life. Why is that? Could it be that some thinkers came up with concept and that majority just follow it without really challenging its modalities? Of course being PC is fine. Gone are the days when people could just call people with derogatory names/words , and now they've to be more careful with their choice of words. This discipliningg ,of course, attempts to bring about a more "civil" society, where the public seem to be more respectful and curteous to each other. This fact has its own place , and such practices ought to be encouraged. However, couldn't being overly PC be detrimental to human [mental] development? For example, if a child sees a person of big size, then should they, be saying that the person must over eat --that's the reason for their obsesity-- or, should they be too polite, and just accept things as they're? I heard that from a curious child, who has been well trained, bring that out much to the dismay and the the embarrasement of the parents. Again, being PC, and following the norms of what society dicate could very weel translate to just following everything by the rule and by the book. Why can't a child say what they think comes to their mind. Won't suppressing such sentiments and observations stifle [proper] growth? Or living in a much dreamt of (and hyped about) dream world of Politically correctedness is the way to go towards budiling a harmonius world? But, won't that make the world a lot duller, when real questions go unanswered, and the reality is kind of obfuscated? What of sex education? In order to be aware that sex is not that harmful and that it is healthy and natural , should society exhibit that image of SEX & ITS EDUCATION? Or, trying to bee too urbane, and unrealistic, should sex be a topic of much disgust that should not be even touched upon? Of course, here I'm not preaching pornography, and actually the former might have evolved and burgeoned as a result of such oppressions of human sentiments and feelings. Who are we kidding? After all, we have highly devloped minds that cna think and act accordingly. But, being too restrained, polite, and just trying to be PC, could just be an impediment to finding the real value of human lives and emotions. Could it? In the example above, I think, creating fantasy dolls, that are much adorned, and liked by young girls is fine, but to create an image of living to be like such and aspriing to be one, is the role of the media. But, also getting big dolls like Emme ,just to be PC ,might not be a sufficent answer to teaching real values. Sometimes, trying to tame emotions, and restrict actions that are quintessentially human, just mightn't, be that . Could we be living in lala land by trying to be too PC and polite?? Or,could being honest and real , be called for sometimes?? Although harsh, could this attitude add more value to our lives in the long run??? |
| protean | Posted
on 11-Dec-02 04:35 PM
missed a line: just mightn't= just mightn't be that correct, after all. |