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Introduction
Barbie is an American plastic doll that was introduced to the market in 1959. At first, the toy represented a figure of a young adult American woman. However, since that time, Barbie has changed hairstyles, clothes, and accessories. Finally, the overall appearance of a doll has changed dramatically for almost 60 years. These modifications faced many critics from people all over the world.
The Reaction of People in Latin America to the Barbie Doll
It is believed that the original Barbie doll creates the wrong girls’ image. The majority of criticism was directed towards the unhealthy thinness promotion and the false ideals created in children’s minds (Nesbitt 2). In the beginning, the Puerto Ricans who lived in the US considered Barbie as a potential source of identity destruction. The potential created by the Barbie doll was based on the cultural and national diversities among the consumers (Nesbitt et al. 10). Therefore, this toy promotes a privilege of an American icon that creates a conflict regarding the race, ethnicity, and gender differences in the community. These factors influenced the attitude of local people in the Latinx community towards the American Barbie doll.
In 2018, many critics rose against the Latin version of a Barbie doll when Mattel released the “Inspiring Women Series”. The company took Frida Kahlo as the inspiration for this new model of a Barbie doll. Her signature unibrow that represented a “striking and beautiful refusal to give in to certain sexist societal pressures”, was not added to the Frida Kahlo Barbie doll (Moynihan 3). Frida Kahlo’s image, which was used as a prototype to the Mexican Barbie doll, was significantly changed and caused many disagreements in the Latin community. These changes, even more, increased the controversy against Barbie in the Latin region.
Conclusion
Barbie’s image, which promotes wrong standards and ideals, has been criticized by the public over the years. Primarily, it causes controversy in a Latinx community due to the surplus of an American privilege idea and the lack of localization aspects in the current Barbie dolls’ prototypes. Therefore, people’s attitude in countries other than the USA was different and even controversial to some specific Barbie doll models.
Works Cited
Moynihan, Colin. “Frida Kahlo is a Barbie Doll Now”. The New Your Times, 2018, p.3.
Nesbitt, Amy, et al. “Barbie’s New Look: Exploring Cognitive Body Representation among Female Children and Adolescents.” PloS ONE, vol. 14, no. 6, 2019, pp. 1-18.
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