This week’s assignment focuses on toys and their cultural meaning.
We were provided with a brief history of toys – at the people’s history web site. Great site/resource and now a new bookmark in my brower’s “tools” folder.
Quite the trip down memory lane! Frightened by the fact that many of the toys I remember enjoying as a kid came from the 30s, 40s and 50s was a bit of a shock. Sure, I’d believe Monopoly was that old, but Clue? The history dates it to the 40s!
And that I was born the year GI Joe was introduced! Confession: I did rent the terrible GI Joe movie. Sad. Chalk one up to the power of branding and efficacy of cross merchandising. The readings, and most of the criticism focuses on how marketers use the powerful relationship between kids and toys to sell stuff. But how about using that same relationship to target the “grown up” kids like myself. Nostalgia marketing. I’m a sucker for it. Note to self: look into the connection between GI Joe and the Vietnam war.
Interesting coincidence that the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street has been all over the media the last few weeks. This cultural icon came up in another class once, where I read about just how they considered and tested every single thing they did. Made big contributions to communications research, etc. Did it ever bridge into mainstream education, I wonder? One of the points the creators discussed was that they never allowed any of their characters to be used in merchandising commercial products to kids. But isn’t Big Bird in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade? Sure, he’s not selling Big Macs, but …
The other provocative reading for this week was 10 of “the most racist toys ever made.” Just when you think you’ve seen the worst, you come across something like the examples shown here. The comments were possibly more horrifying. What happened to our “post-racial” society? The list reminded me of the Halloween costume conversations on the feminist blog about how offensive it is to dress up like people of a different race. Not to mention the high level of sexualization in costumes for young girls.
A week later there is Jon Stewart doing a segment on “black face” where his “Senior Black Correspondent” reports that there is absolutely no circumstance where black face is appropriate (unless you “have a black face”), until confronted with images from America’s Next Top Model where Tyra’s model contestants were challenged to represent bi-racial women.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Is Blackface Ever OK? | ||||
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From black face to blue eyes
It makes a good subhead, but it is also where the question of the week leads me.
I liked dolls. Lots of girls do. I owned several Barbie™ Dolls, Skipper and Ken. My brother’s GI Joe was frequently appropriated for double dating. I coveted the Barbie townhouse (but alternately was appalled when we discovered one, still in active use, in the closet of a seventh grade girl friend).
In college, one of the few non-“old dead white guy” course in the English Literature major was “Women in Literature” and our professor assigned Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (published 1970, I read it in ’83?). Blew my mind. It so richly, horribly and beautifully depicts the insidious ways racism is perpetuated by our culture, celebrated in our icons and artifacts. In the book, the protagonist Pecola Breedlove wants more than anything to have blue eyes. They will make her beautiful because only the blue eyes of white girls are beautiful – that’s what the world tells her and that’s what she believes. And she’ll never have blue eyes, she’ll never be beautiful and she’ll always despise herself. I remember thinking how bizarre it was that these girls only had white dolls to play with, white movie stars to admire or white girls as role models of beauty.
But it’s only a toy
Pecola’s experience is not unique. In fact, the link to critical real-world, life-changing events is a direct one.
Brown vs. the Board of Education is one of the most significant pieces of legislation intended to address the problem of racism – or perhaps, intended to address our country’s legacy of slavery, or perhaps intended to address the human instinct to create the “other.” It failed in the state, but the Supreme Court agreed that “separate but equal” wasn’t really possible, in the context of our constitutionally dictated “right to equal protection under the law.”
Key to their case was research (go academics!) by education psychologists conducted with – you guessed it – dolls. They presented African American children with a white baby doll and a black baby doll, asking which they liked better, which was “good,” “bad,” and most like them. Suffice to say, the kids reflected popular cultural attitudes – preferring the white babies, describing black babies as bad -- and the court believed that segregation was contributing to this harmful and limiting self perception. These African American children were not receiving equal treatment. Thus de-segregation.
A few years ago, I ran into a video by 17-year-old film student Kiri Davis. Through her after school video program, she produced a short documentary film that explored African-American attitudes toward their skin color. She also reproduced the “doll test” from 1954.
Her results were consistent. And her documentary captures on film the painful conflict etched on the eyes of these children who believe that babies who like them are “bad.”
The documentary is personal, her bios and news articles described her own struggles with her “color,” dominant attitudes about beauty, her parents’ struggles to find positive representations of girls of color – where are the black princesses? The adolescent girls she interviews talk about “good hair” that naturally looks like white hair, the importance and advantage of being “light skinned.”
I’d like to blame Barbie™, but for me, she’s more of a symptom than a cause. I’m confident that the toy makers at Mattel™ are aware that Barbie™ has had a PR problem and a visit to their web site confirmed that they are making some effort to broaden their presentation of beauty and femininity; their definition of the role of girls and women. That’s the nice way to say it. It’s probably equally important that they have actual markets for non-blonde, more than a princess Barbie™.
I must respect the Barbie™ brand though. I go to the site and wait for their fancy graphics to load and instead of a boring “loading” bar, I get a tube of Barbie Pink lipstick slowly reveal to track my download. Never mind all the sexual connotations, I’m a perverted adult. It was cute! And gross. Gotta have some lipstick to be a girl, you know.
I can’t help but notice that Barbie™ is a Musketeer. Yes, it appears that she always aspired to be one, then ran into three other gals (one of whom appears to be a girl of color, although I find no specific labeling as such) who share her dream. Actual copy from the video:
Can this dare to dream team use their girl power to save the prince?
OK, they still look like princesses. They still have 14” waists. I’m sure there’s much tittering and giggling. But this is a pretty substantial fairy tale role reversal!
Another line that made me laugh was, “Don’t mess with the dress!” – which later I realize is actually promoting a feature – the hem of her long dress is detachable and converts into a cape. “Includes a matching sword accessory.” I’m only a little deflated that Barbie’s bold retreat from gender stereotypes ends up featuring violence.
I also check out the “I can be” Barbie™ line. Girls can chose to be a Pre School Teacher, New Born Baby Doctor Babysitter, SeaWorld ® Trainer (cross merchandising!), Dentist, Pet Vet, Bride, Gymnastics coach, Kid Doctor, Race car driver, Rockstar, Ballerina. I don’t think these examples come close to balancing out the 23 “fashion doll products” or 40 “Disney Princess doll products.”
In this line, the New Born Baby Doctor (love how they keep the occupation titles age-appropriate) is offered as a White and an African American doll. A few other lines included African American and White doll options. I found no “Latina” or “Asian” dolls.
There is an entire section (with it’s own navigational call-out) of African American Barbie Dolls – the “So In Style™” line. Of these some are a character and her little sister (and there is a white equivalent). Three of the “SIS” dolls are featured as being about hair styling – and apparently have a special type of “style-able” hair. Of course, none of them have natural African American hair. None of them are particularly dark, but there are a few different skin tones.
I didn’t have to work too hard to find these examples. That said the Barbie web site’s home page is pure pink, blonde and white. There is no escaping what image “Barbie” conjures up. It will never change entirely, although it may evolve. Barbie beauty is forever blond, blue-eyed and light skinned.
Mattress Ticking
I was raised by caring, generous, enlightened and creative parents. They made me all sorts of amazing toys, including a hand-made “doll house” where the dolls were tiny animal couples, all dressed up. It had a very impressive ballroom with a wall of mirrors and a grand piano. And I wanted a Barbie townhouse?
This doll came with a number of dresses, again, all hand sewn. I remember loving changing her dresses. I still have two of them.
The unusual thing about this doll was that her main fabric is mattress-ticking – a rugged, light canvas texture, eggshell-ish color with denim blue stripes running through it.
I can remember as a kid being kinda conflicted about her “skin.” It didn’t look like me, or like anyone. Was she “pretty?”
Like most girls, I struggled with comparing myself to the Barbie™. But as I explored this topic, I can't help but wonder if my love of her – and her unusual looks – diminished the impact of Barbie™ defined-beauty? Or more importantly, the role my parents played -- making this doll, modeling a different beauty standard, encouraging me in sports, learning, expressing my opinions.
Sadly, girls like Pecola -- and so many others -- may never have those powerfully counter-balancing influences and supports. So Barbie™ wins, again.
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