Barbies and Kens
Once a month or so there's a market outside the RPA hospital in Camperdown. Yesterday I spotted these baskets of Barbies and Kens ($1.00 each). I liked how the vendor had separated them along gender lines. I also like how most of them don't have any clothes left.
6 comments:
You should have rescued them, they could be refugee Barbie Liberation Organisation veterans.
It's fascinating how unattractive naked dolls are. I'm not sure it's just the lack of precision about sexual organs. Plastic muscles and curves look much like overly polished real muscles and curves, as though beautiful people are all trying to look like Barbies and Kens, despite how unattractive the real things are.
I read somewhere that what little girls mostly do with their Barbie dolls is torture them. Obviously, removing their clothes would be the first step.
I actually read it in Harpers Magazine, and I remember thinking what a very peculiar piece of research it was.
Very true JW. I think that the attraction in Barbies & Kens is in how you can dress them in different outfits - effectively cover their nakedness. Strangely, other more attractive but less "human" looking dolls like rag dolls perhaps facilitate more imaginative play. And yes I agree, "beautiful" people ARE trying to look like Barbies and Kens - see one of my favourite sites for the proof - awfulplasticsurgery.com
Hi anonymous,
But what a wonderful piece of research! I remember my daughter at about seven beheading a barbie, cutting a hole in its head, stuffing the hole with scrunched-up aluminium foil, etc etc. I KNOW the head is in the house somewhere, I stashed it away thinking it was too good a work of art to chuck out. But can I find it now that I want to take a picture of it & post it on the blog? Of course not. I just went into the daughter's room to ask if she knew where it was. There are three other 16 year old girls in her bed. They've been out partying. Some eyes opened to observe me looking on the shelves. A voice said "oh, cute."
Looks like a Spencer Tunick photo. The guy in the black suit seems to be a bit uptight about something.
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