Tiny Shoulders, Rethinking Barbie

Interesting primarily from a marketing perspective. A story about good timing, a tenacious founder, and a chance encounter in Germany with a doll named Lil (sold in service stations and marketed to men!) gives way to a drearily self-important discourse in sociology. Yes, fine, Barbie was culturally relevant and yes this is a great big advertisement for woke mattel products. Guaranteed to give any survivors of corporate america (particularly in marketing & PR) severe agita. Trigger alert: Mattel employees with severe upspeak, vocal trill, and tragic buzz word addiction. 90 minutes seems like 4 hours.

If you wanted to watch a Barbie film with feminist talking heads and multiple mentions of "white supremacy" this is it. For me it was just interesting to see just how far off the mark certain types still were, ideology warping their understanding of basic realities.

Yes there are beauty standards. Academics have tried to deny this pointing to historic art painted for the pretentious rich of their day which like todays elites and their obsession with modern art is not representative of any wider norm. Go look up Michelangelo's Pieta for the honest reality that beauty has always been idealized. When creating art to glorify god not only is the mother of Jesus depicted as beautiful, but she is unrealistically young.

One should note the concern over body shaming coincides with an epidemic of obesity, so the assumption behind the concern is questionable as the protection from standards leads to undeniable real world harm far greater than hurt feelings. Its notable in asian cultures where obesity is far less common, body shaming is actually common.

The concern over eating disorders was one of the original pieces of "fake news". The statistics were fabricated, as were the reasons. All the elaborate explanations cultural and psychological were false, in real cases its simply a feminine form of OCD. Originally seen in religious form when afflicted nuns would starve themselves to be closer to god.

The pernicious use of childrens toys to indoctrinate should really stop, it doesn't work and those who push extreme ideologies denouncing such toys usually are the example of how their own ideologies are the true danger. Roxane Gay, Gloria Steinem, the bitter critiques of the permanently childless when they are the living examples of the wrongness of their ideas.

Maybe the lesson to women is that they should stop over thinking things. There is no similar documentary or concern over male toys like GI Joe or He-man, fantasy is fantasy. It' s even more disturbing once you realize that boys toys depict the selfless, while feminist toys depict the selfish. The feminist narrative has always been an inversion of reality.

I cannot believe that people actually thought Barbie was FORCING people to be skinny. FORCING people into thinking that beauty is white, blonde and skinny.

The very first words from this documentary comes from a woman who says "I'm glad I didn't grow up with Barbie".

I wonder if Barbie has also told people to go rob a bank. People need to take responsibility for themselves. If a toy can dictate your child's future, there is something wrong with the parents.

People need to look around at other things that were influencing children. Maybe famous people like Farrah and Jackie Kennedy. To blame this all on a doll is ridiculous.

I am glad I grew up with Barbie. The toy doll did not tell me to be skinny, blonde or anything else. The Barbie doll did encourage my imagination to play and dream as a little girl..

If you think Barbie is anti-feminist or teaches some antiquated way for girls to be, you are missing the point. Check out this documentary about Mattel's process of relaunching Barbie. What a complex problem to be faced with. Interviews include Roxane Gay and Gloria Steinem who do not love Barbie. There's also an interesting history of the doll including biographical info on Ruth Handler, her creator.

Whether you love Barbie, are ambivalent towards her, or think she's a bad role model for your daughter, this movie will probably not change your mind.

Stupid movie! it's a doll! I don't think that playing with a pretty doll makes you feel bad or better about yourself. Barbie, if anything shows little girls they can be anything when they grow up. Like a doctor, flight attendant, bee keeper, veterinarian, dentist, astronaut. The movie was basically about people who don't like the way they look blame it on a doll.