I believe a doll like Barbie is very influential on little girls because they are constantly playing with them. Barbie’s and GI Joes are made with better bodies these days as shown in the movie Tough Guise. Children are always looking up to someone so it makes sense that they will expect to have bodies like that. If they are always playing with them then they will want to have bodies like that so they aren’t different. The Simpsons also made fun of dolls influence on little girls with the Malibu Stacy doll saying stereotypical things. All the girls rushed after the new doll that just came out. This shows that they are always looking for something new to look up to.
Here is a site theat explains some of the influences barbie has on young girls.
Like Luke I also think that Barbie’s and GI Joe have a huge impact on children. Children spend countless amounts of time with their dolls which leads me to believe that these dolls have tremendous influence on how children think they should look. Because children are very impressionable and have little knowledge of the world at a young age the dolls the play with are some of the few role models that they encounter daily aside from their parents. Personally I think my body image was pretty heavily influenced my dolls I played with. I had hundreds of Barbie’s when I was younger and I can remember thinking that that was how all women were supposed to look. I also had a life size Barbie when I was younger. When I was younger I can remember wishing that when I was younger I would look like her because she was what our society considers to be beautiful and what little girl doesn’t want to be pretty.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Luke and Jasmine. Barbie dolls are played with by little girls that spend most of their time analyzing their toys everyday, so therefore Barbies are going to have some sort of influence on them. A lot of girls look up to these dolls, and think this is what they're "suppose" to look like. As a little girl I thought that when I get to be a teenager, that's what I was suppose to, or going to look like. I also think GI Joe action figures and other toys like that influence boys to be big and strong, and to fight & do masculine things like being a jet pilot, or a fire fighter.
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