So once again a toy manufacturer has put out a doll that has me siding with “the outraged Christian groups”. And yet I had a pretty hedonistic youth before I became a parent, and I enjoyed it, and I hope to experience a little more hedonism one day when our nest is empty.
If anything I want more sexual freedom for the world not less, I want people to be able to have sex with as many people as they want, to have sex with people of whatever gender they’re attracted to, to dress up as Barbie while they do it if they want. I just don’t want us all to be forced to follow a porn script when we have sex, and I especially don’t want our porn notions of sex to take over children’s lives so goddamn much.
Post script: I think I was too brief in writing this post so I’ve elaborated and explored my thoughts on this issue in the comments. Thanks for the motivation, commenters.
I’m with you: sex and lots of it is great, but the porn script isn’t. It’s early days yet, but I am feeling anxious about telling my children how to avoid the porn agenda and have sex the way they want to.
But she’s not porn, she’s Black Canary, a superhero dating back to the 1960s as a mother/daughter team. She fights crime, is a martial arts expert, and is raising an adopted daughter. Out-of-context, any superhero costume is a bit pornographic, but maybe you should take a look at the actual context, not the one the Christian groups are providing?
lilacsigil – I know she’s Black Canary and I get that she’s probably more a collectors item for adults, but here’s the thing. The sexualisation of children’s things is the thin edge of the wedge, it’s really a part of the sexual objectification of women in general, which is why when we make superhero dolls for kids the female superheros are all super sexualised because that is how we depict desirable females.. not because Mattel wanted to make something obscene. And this is the other thing, if this Black Canary Barbie appeared out of the blue I’d probably think whatever, cult collectors item appearing in children’s toy, bit icky, but it is not arriving out of the blue, it is arriving when Barbie is desperate to make up a bit of ground against the Bratz doll, it is arriving when girlhood is being compressed, when everything sexy sells and the boundaries of childhood have blurred. Coincidence? I think probably not.
I can see it as part of an ongoing trend of sexualisation, and I see your point about Mattel putting out this doll as an attempt to cash in on sexualised imagery for children. Honestly I much prefer to see superheroines drawn with more costume and less skin. But this is not a modern costume design in the slightest. I would have loved a superhero Barbie when I was a 9-year-old comic reader, but the only superhero toys were boys. I couldn’t even find a Wonder Woman doll. If there’s going to be complaints about Barbie and sexualisation of childhood, fair enough, but I don’t think that Black Canary Barbie in her 1960′s fishnets is the one to single out. I hope there’s a lot more superhero Barbies in the future – women like Oracle, and the Question and Huntress, and Phoenix, and Storm, all of whom are fully dressed (most of the time)
There won’t be superhero dolls of fully-dressed women. They chose Black Canary, I suspect, because of the fishnets, not because of any of her backstory. If my daughter sees her on the shelf in the store, she won’t know the backstory. She’ll just have another image in her head of how women are supposed to look that matches all the other images. That’s not empowering.
lilacsigil – I like the idea of girls being able to play “superhero” as well as “super model” with their dolls.
lilacsigil – I get all you’re saying too – it’s just, if Black Canary is so damn awesome, can’t the woman at least have some PANTS? (That are not fetishy black leather?) Fishnets are not protection against the elements OR your enemies!
I have a great website for you, to see more of the point bluemilk is making…http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/ Look up posts on the other characters you mention, I’m sure Karen Healey has written about them all.
Thanks hendo, but I’m a long-standing member of Girl Wonder! I agree that Black Canary should have pants, but that’s not the same thing as making a Barbie of an already-existing character, and making a doll of a character in her 1960s costume is not precisely equivalent to “Barbie is getting sexier”. A link for Barbie comparisons: http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/07/17/black-canary-barbie-heathen-tramp/
BlueMilk, I think you are totally right. Also Joy (or Jay, the type is too small on my screen) I totally agree with your point, and think it blows every argument about back story and historical clothing out of the area. It is a fetishised image of a woman that forms an idea of how women should look in the minds of children, and to be fair, everyone. The marketing value is not that she has done various things in her past, it is in that she is fetishised.
Sorry I have gone on…
I’m so with you on this blue milk, what really sucks about all this is that I shouldn’t *have* to have a problem with this doll. lilacsigil’s point should be all that matters. I just don’t want to have to deal with this, but I looked at two mags aimed at very young kids today – the boy’s one had puzzles, stories, musical games and toys, the girls one had a competition, jewellery and how to style your hair like . This was aimed at preschoolers! If it’s all about appearance before you start school, what hope can a girl have in navigating the world of sex when she gets there?
If this doll was balanced with every other kind of female role model, there would be no issue at all. I despair for my 8 month old.
Argggg, damned random HTML. That should say hair like “insert Disney Princess Here”
I agree. These dolls are terrible examples of what a woman should look like. Barbie is bad, and those Bratz dolls are even worse. I’m disgusted by the sexuality they exude from their spot on the toy shelf, encouraging young girls to wear heavy make up, put on a slutty dress and get on the prowl. apalling
[...] has recently examined the Target catalog and found it wanting, while both bluemilk and the Dawn Chorus take a look at the newest Barbie Collectible doll, the comic strip character [...]
I think I’m with lilacsigil on this one – according to the article she linked to, the doll is being marketed at the 14+ collectors. Barbie is essentially utterly sexual – to be honest, I’d rather she was overtly so and marketed at adults than covertly sexualised and marketed at kids as a ‘baby photographer’ or a ‘kindergarten teacher’ (yep, that’s barbie’s worklife now – bring back Harley Davidson Barbie).
The porn script depresses me too. But I don’t know that the past scripts were any better. I have to say that it can’t be all doom and gloom – there must be a way WE can exploit the commercial imagery for our own agenda. I hate the idea of lying down and just accepting that corporate culture have that much control. And I don’t simply want to restrict access to that culture – after all, they have to go and have relationships of all kinds in that world. So what are the options – how can we constructively use this stuff?
This post has reinforced for me two things. One, it is always the post you least suspect which will get the most traffic in any given month. And, two, don’t go blogging half-formed thoughts. Although having said that, an excellent way to make fully formed thoughts is to post half-formed thoughts and get responses flying in to force you to get on with making some fully formed thoughts. So, thanks everyone.
I’m ambivalent about the Black Canary biz. She is a superhero character, created more for adults than children. This particular Barbie is a collectors’ item pitched at adults and older children. Black Canary is cool, and brave, and gorgeous, and clever.. but like Aeon Flux, who I adore.. in her underwear. It is kind of a shame that the gutsy cool girl characters we have to offer our daughters are always dressed so vulnerably. They might look spiky and wild but they also look like a couple of false moves and their clothes would fall off.
Plus, yeah this particular Barbie is not aimed at little girls but it IS Barbie, you know Barbie is a toy for young girls so Barbie can’t divorce itself from its own image, its own brand. When Barbie does something they do something as a toy manufactured for little girls.
Penni – I don’t think it is all doom and gloom, in fact I suspect there is a feminist resurgence, maybe because of the current backlash against women. Hopefully our daughters will be part of the new wave, hey? I’m completely addicted to pop culture so there is no opting out for me, I hope to keep my wits about me with regards to the sexism while still consuming it, and to impart that same wisdom to my daughter, equip her to critique her culture. Identifying the sexism and ranting about it with other feminists like here feels empowering for me. Feminists can be so isolated out there in the real world, it is nice to know you and your way of seeing things are not alone.
hi, thought you might appreciate this…
a couple of the ladies with Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood have come out with this book:
http://www.sosexysosoon.com/
check out their main site at:
http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/
i share your frustrations as do many others.