Barbie’s new scene looks like an eating disorder

I’m fishing around in my 15-year-old brother’s
Halloween candy bag, and I take out some Almond Joys. I stuff half
of one in my mouth, kick up my feet, and crack open the Sunday
paper. While looking through the comics I notice a toy ad for the
upcoming holidays. Those familiar pink pages stir long-settled
memories of Christmas day, unwrapping that familiar-shaped box,
that box every girl waited for all year ““ Barbie.

Wait, but what’s this? My Scene Barbies? This is new. A
frail waif of a Barbie with long legs, miniature breasts and
pronounced cheekbones, with tubular arms and a head full of fluffy
hair straddled over a Vespa in pencil-thin jeans and a
tight-fitting parka. Who is this? Certainly not Skipper. No,
Skipper had thighs. This must be the Atkins Diet Barbie or the
South Beach Diet Barbie.

I could suddenly taste the intensity of the half-dissolved
Almond Joy in my mouth. There were nauseating memories of high
school, when for two years I had been a captive of two eating
disorders. For two years I felt so alone and undesirable. For two
years I balanced a mirror and a stack of Glamour magazines with
bowls of carrot sticks and Diet Pepsi.

And as I was about to enjoy my Sunday off, with a bag of candy
and not a care in the world, I got this rude awakening.

This Barbie doll could only have developed these features if she
had an eating disorder: the non-existent calves, the space between
her thighs that she could fit a quarter in between, the spaghetti
arms, the large eyes and skin stretched over high cheekbones. But
what I found most peculiar ““ because even old school Barbie
used to smile ““ My Scene Barbie has a blank, vacant
expression.

So whose scene, exactly, is Mattel referring to?

Ңbull;Ӣbull;Ӣbull;

Dear Mattel,

I thought Barbie was supposed to reflect the “real
girl” we all wanted to become. In the late ’90s,
feminists fought to change Barbie’s measurements from an
unattainable 38-18-34, and Mattel responded with the Happy-to-Be-Me
doll at a more realistic 36-27-38.

But what’s happened since? Your ad proclaims
“It’s a New Barbie World.” Well, I have some news
for you, Mattel. Your attention to detail was skewed a little in
Barbie’s new development.

Barbie may sport 30-19-32 “tween” measurements, but
you skimped on a few other features that come with that
package.

Where is Barbie’s new thinning hair? Where are
Barbie’s new blood-shot eyes? Where are Barbie’s new
bruises that seem to come from nowhere all over Barbie’s new
body? Where is Barbie’s new yellowing skin? Where is
Barbie’s new scale that she dare not ever depart with? And
where is Barbie’s new pack of Altoids that she keeps with her
to cover the stench of stagnation in Barbie’s new empty
stomach?

This was not a tear-out in Biography magazine geared for
collectors; it was an ad in a toy catalogue entitled
“Kids’ Favorite Things.” I can only imagine what
a little girl would think when she saw Barbie draped over a Vespa
ready to blow away like a daddy longlegs spider.

The interior monologue of a million little girls this Sunday
must have run something like this: “Now Barbie looks like a
model. Do I look like a model? No, wait, what is this on me? Barbie
doesn’t have this now ““ I need to get rid of it,
too.”

That is your flesh, my dear. You need it to survive.

All of the charm of an Egyptian mummy intended to appeal to
millions of preteens over the world. Maybe next year we
shouldn’t hand out Milky Ways and Starbursts ““
Sweet’N Low and celery will be more popular.

Barbie may only be a doll. But when some little girls’
best friend and role model is a doll, we have to consider what will
become of young girls when they grow up.

Are the women of tomorrow destined to fall into an endless cycle
of guilt because they ate a Fig Newton at lunch, and now they may
never achieve the sickly beauty of their childhood heroines?

Hand is a first-year undeclared student.