Barbie's Birthday

Did you know that Barbie's 49th birthday occurred last week? We can date ourselves by Barbie's birthday. There are few of us who don't have childhood memories inextricably bound up with her. It's only a matter of which Barbie generation you can claim as your own. Some of us grew up with the early generation--Barbie, Ken, Midge, and Skipper. Others hail from the Mod Era, which included Tutti, Todd, and Francie. Then, of course, came the Malibu Era. Alongside the tall, tanned, toned blond perfection that was Malibu Barbie came Fluff, Tiff, Steffi, Kelley, and Cara.

This weekend I had opportunity to hear author Michelle Graham speak to a group of high school girls, and she had a lot to say about our relationship with Barbie, some of which appears in her book, Wanting To Be Her: Body Image Secrets Victoria Won't Tell You. See if you can't relate to Michelle's words:

My Barbie had come with curly hair. Very early on I put her hair in a ponytail with a rubber band. . . . When I finally took the rubber band out, the plastic hair had become so tangled that it stuck straight out on top of her head. There she was, doomed to a life of bad hair days. . . . Thinking about it now, I can almost taste the irony. A Barbie with flaws. Isn't Barbie supposed to be the ideal role model for little girls? Barbie is supposed to inspire. She's been a cheerleader, a college student, a power exectuive, an astronaut, even an athlete in the WNBA. There is nothing she doesn't own--cars, houses, clothes, boats, swimming pools, even her own McDonald's franchise. . . . This is the image that has been marketed to young girls all over the world as an inspiration to womanhood. And we eat it up. Barbie has become a $1.5 billion-a-year industry. . . .

Don't worry, I'm not on a Barbie-burning crusade. And I'm certainly no expert on the psychological effects of Barbie on young children. But I do know that at a very young age I bought into the idea that unless my Barbie was physically perfect, she wasn't as good as the other Barbies on the block. In fact, she embarrassed me.

As I grew into adulthood. I left my Barbie behind. Unfortunately I continued my Barbie philosophy of life. My body grew into the form that my Maker designed it to be. But I've struggled with the belief that unless I am physically perfect--a perfection that is unattainable and unrealistic--I'm somehow not as valuable as everybody else. Barbie moved out but Victoria moved in.

Thre's nothing quite like a glance at a Victoria's Secret catalog to invoke a flood of insecurities and feelings of disappointment. I know I'm supposed to be admiring the undergarments on those pages, and I can appreciate a well-made brassiere. But frankly, it isn't a well-made product that draws my attention. It's Victoria's models. Immediately a body-comparison game ensues. Am I supposed to look like that? Those legs? That tummy? That skin? eyes? lips? My hair won't do that. And I know that bra wouldn't look that way on me.

It seems I'm not alone in my twisted worldview. A recent survey found that 70 percect of women felt depressed, guilty, and shameful after looking at a fashion magazine for only three minutes. . . . Few of us are unaffected by the desire for a "body by Victoria."

(Wanting To Be Her, InterVarsity, 2005; pp. 12-14)