barbie

MODESTO--A 6-year-old girl stabbed a 7-year-old playmate in the back with a steak knife in a fight over Barbie dolls, police said yesterday. --Associated Press (1995; see OBJECT FANCY)

Barbie is an icon because she triggers this worshipful attitude and a desire to smash what she represents. --Valerie Steele, Contributing Curator, "Art, Design and Barbie: The Evolution of a Cultural Icon," Liberty Street Gallery, New York City (Span 1995:G1)

Sexual icon. 1. A hand-held consumer product displaying exaggerated signs of feminine beauty. 2. A portable, 11-inch plastic symbol of Americana whose messaging features (e.g., high heels, hourglass figure, and infantile schema) appeal to millions of young girls. 3. A thematic plaything (e.g., Totally Hair Barbie, Shopping Spree Barbie, Wet and Wild Barbie) idolized by children and adults in more than 140 countries throughout the world.

Usage: "I don't think anyone feels neutral about Barbie," said Forever Barbie author, M. G. Lord (Jones 1994:D8; see EMOTION). According to Mattel Inc., the typical U.S. girl between three and 10 years old owns eight Barbie dolls (Jones 1994). Extreme Barbie fans may dress like--or undergo surgery to look like--the doll itself (Lord 1994).

Anatomy. Barbie's permanently pointed feet assume a high-heel stance. (N.B.: Though plumper, rounder, and older [i.e., Upper Paleolithic], the Venus of Willendorf figurine has pronged legs, as well.) To look like Barbie, a woman would have to stand 7 feet 2 inches tall and add 5 inches to her bust size.

Evolution. The Barbie concept originated in 1951 when the doll's creator, Ruth Handler, observed her daughter's pleasure in dressing adult-shaped paper dolls. In 1956, Handler discovered "Lilli," a humorous, full-figured German plastic doll designed to entertain men. Using Lilli as a prototype, Mattel began selling Barbie dolls in 1959.

Face. 1. 1959: "Barbie's first face has a fashion-model aloofness, a sideways glance, and a seductive pout" (Hoffman 1996:16). 2. 1971: Barbie's face is restructured: "She now smiles" (Hoffman 1996:16). 3. 1977: Barbie's smile is widened to its current toothy grin (Hoffman 1996).

Semiotics. Some see in Barbie's lean and lanky slimness an unrealistic (and even dangerous, i.e., anorexic) standard for the female body (see LOVE SIGN). Others see Barbie as a shallow sign of consumer materialism. (N.B.: One of Barbie's voice chips asks, e.g., "Will we ever have enough clothes?" [Jones 1994:D8].)

Update. "Barbie, the doll that the Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler modeled after Lilli and introduced at the World's Fair in 1959, will now come in a variety of shapes and shades. (And also: a variety of hairstyles, and eye colors, and 'face sculpts'.) The doll will still be fairly cartoonish--this is Barbie, after all--but, from today, she can be bought in sizes 'petite' and 'tall' and 'curvy'. (The terms, Time notes--the English euphemisms, as well as their translations into other languages--were extensively debated by Mattel marketing executives. (She can also, just as importantly, be bought in seven different skin tones.)" (Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/barbies-hips-dont-lie/432741/ [accessed Jan. 2016)

Neuro-notes I. Our primate brain dedicates distinct modules of visual cortex to the recognition of faces and facial expressions. The same dedicated nerve cells of the lower temporal lobe, which respond to human faces, respond--with equal feeling--to Barbie doll faces, rendering them psychologically "real."

Neuro-notes II. "'She can conjure up images of a perfect childhood, a safe nostalgic world. But others see her as a cruel dominatrix, a wimp and a victim, a bimbo. The responses are really visceral'" (Valerie Steele [see above, second epigraph] quoted in Span 1995:G5; see ENTERIC BRAIN).

See also LOVE SIGNAL.

YouTube Video: Watch Barbie's television debut in 1959.

REPRODUCTIVE IMAGERY

Sexual signage

A male or female sexual trait as depicted in a drawing, etching, painting, photograph, video or sculpted figurine. A significant proportion of human imagery is in service to the reproductive force, the fifth fundamental force of nature. Nonverbally, sexual signage in advertising, magazines and motion pictures is a constant reminder of the reproductive imperative: to perpetuate the human species.

Prehistory I

The earliest sexual illustrations were realistic and abstract renderings of female and male sexual organs, painted on Upper Paleolithic cave walls in western Europe between 34,000 and 12,000 years ago. The most common themes depicted on Paleolithic cave walls were food and sex, in that order.

Prehistory II

Dating to ca. 25,000 years ago, female Venus figurines with exaggerated breasts, buttocks and tummies have been found across Europe from Spain to Russia. The figurines had less to "say" about beauty than fertility.

Media

In U.S. college bookstores of the 1990s, the number one, two and three best-selling magazines, respectively, were Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Vogue, read by young women seeking to enhance their sex appeal. Americans view thousands of sexually suggestive scenes a year on TV.

See also BARBIE DOLL.

STATUE SIGNS

Frozen gestures

Any of several small, life-size or monumental iconic bronze, concrete, plaster, stone (e.g., granite, jade, marble) or wooden—usually freestanding—sculptures depicting upright, seated or reclining human bodies. The arrangement, position and varied shapes of a statue's sign features may encode nonverbal narratives about cognition, emotion states and social bonds.
  
Usage

Statues may be used to commemorate important moments in time, memorialize military victories or celebrate religious figures (as in Marian shrines). Monumental statues may be used by autocrats to suggest overwhelming political power (see LOOM).

  Cognitive cues

Originally called "The Poet" (1880) Rodin's "The Thinker" depicts a solitary, seated muscular man painfully contemplating the fate of humanity, as portrayed in his own "Gates of Hell" sculpture cast through the lens of Dante's Divine Comedy, for which it stands. In his own words, Rodin identified the man's visible agony in "compressed lips" (see LIP-COMPRESSION), "distended nostrils" (see NOSTRIL-FLARE) and "knitted brow" (see EYEBROW LOWER). The statue's oppositionally-twisted upper and lower body (see CONTRAPPOSTO STANCE), flexed and adducted self-touching signs and strongly contracted muscle tone visible in arms, back and legs reveal his mental anguish. The sculpture shows strong stimulation of the Thinker's lips—with his bare knuckles—as a tactile means of coping with mental anguish through physical stimulation (see SELF-TOUCH). Nonverbally, Rodin's statue also could be entitled "The Worrier."

Emotional states

In nonverbal contrast to "The Thinker," Michelangelo's marble "Pieta" (1499) depicts a seated young woman, Mary, holding a recumbent male figure, Jesus, shortly after his tortured death by crucifixion. There is no visible agony in either face (see BLANK FACE), nor in Mary's relaxed posture or Jesus's supine position in her lap. It was Michelangelo's artistic intent to show an emotional tone of acceptance and comfort in Jesus's accomplishments on Earth—and return to Heaven—rather than revealing sadness or pain upon his death.

Social bonds

Finally, in Rodin's "Burghers of Calais" (1889), a group of six men stand bonding in an historical scene depicting a likely group execution. Faces are anguished, clenched and frowning (see LIP-COMPRESSION, FROWN). Arms drop flaccidly in defeat to knee level; eyes gaze down in despair (see GAZE-DOWN). One man lifts a hand upward, as if gesturing in speech (see GESTURE); another implores with lowered arms and upturned palms of the deferential shoulder-shrug (see SHOULDER-SHRUG DISPLAY).
  
See also ART CUE.