I had a Barbie when I was younger -- alright I had a lot of Barbie’s plus her horse and pink convertible. I brushed the hair, picked out the clothes, and used my imagination to see what Barbie would do next. I never had a talking Barbie, but I think the notion of it would undermine my imagination to be free.
The Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) is a group of artists and activists who decided that a talking Barbie was the last straw. Not only was Barbie masquerading an anorexic figure which young girls could never match and making “make believe” into a thing of consumerism, now Barbie had a voice-box that would be giggling :
“Math is hard!”
“I love shopping!”
“Will we ever have enough clothes?”
As if Barbie was not a plastic example of our society’s skewed perfection of the “ideal” body, now she was spouting gendered, stereotypical saying. The BLO wanted to put a stop to this.
The BLO formed in 1989, in hopes of alerting the public to question and change gender stereotypes. This organization was forming in the midst of the 1990s, in the “middle of a culture war” and when “creative dissent once again gaining popularity and artists and activists were often trying to conceive of new ways to rebel against cultural stereotypes and powerful forms like network TV”(Wikipedia). Criticism was hitting its all-time high for Barbie by 1993, as popular culture and academia were picking on the negative stereotype Barbie was portraying. As their first form of protest was to take the similar voice hardware in the Teen Talk Barbie and the G.I Joe action figure and make a swap. Though it sounds simple enough, and the BLO even posted a ‘Do-It-Yourself’ in PDA format so you could print it off and try it yourself. (I tried searching for the link, but it has since been shut down or taken off)
The result? Barbie is yelling “Vengeance is mine!” while G.I. Joe daydreams “Let’s plan our dream wedding!” The BLO placed stickers reading “call your local news” on the backs of the boxes to make sure that the media got wind of this form of culture jamming. The organization described their action of returning the toys back to the shelves “reverse shoplifting” – the store makes money twice, making what the BLO did in some way ‘legal’.
In the ninja-like way culture jamming occurs, it was impossible to tell how many Barbies and G.I. Joes had been switched; it was also hard to tell how much of the media attention occurred from angry phone calls from consumers or if it was set up by the artists to ensure that their message was heard. It was estimated that 300 to 500 toys were hacked and then returned to the shelves; another report boasted of up to 3,000 dolls having had “surgery” preformed on them and been shipped off to Canada, France and England.
I think the BLO is effective in getting a message across to consumers, but what exactly is that message? End gendered stereotypes? Or was the actions of the BLO seen as a prank to ‘stick it to’ the consumer companies? Mattel and Hasbro brushed off the accusations of perpetuating gender stereotypes, and claimed to be “outrage by the terrorist attack on children”.
Here is a link to a news report about the BLO voice-switch protest:
Though this protest happened nearly twenty years ago, it was one of the first outcries against Mattel; I do not agree that this was the best way to get their message across to the public, and that the project is more about a critique about media and television culture at the time rather than against gender stereotypes. However, by switching the overtly masculine and overtly feminine voices of the dolls, children could see through its ridiculous presentation that some things to say were “boy things” while others were “girl things”.
Did this form of protest really work? Does the BLO have feminist undertones in its form of culture jamming?
I definitely think that what the BLO stands for is a legitimate and just cause. In my opinion, Barbie most definitely shapes attitudes about gender roles in young girls. I can not believe that talking Barbie said things as "Math is hard" , "Will we ever have enough clothes?" This is horrendous and what is this teaching young girls in terms of ambition and goals in their lives?
ReplyDeleteI grew up adoring Barbie and had more than enough Barbie paraphernalia myself. However, one Christmas my parents got me black Barbie. At the time, I can remember this being the only racially different Barbie from the many other white Barbies. Unfortunately to say, my 6 year old self did not particularly like black Barbie solely because she was not white. I know this sounds awful, but I think this just goes to show how culturally significant Barbie has been in shaping young girls views and standards of race, class, and gender roles. My dad (awesome dad!) always played Barbies with me and upon discovering my disappointment made a point to tell me that I needed to love black Barbie just as much as my other Barbies because she was just as special and just as deserving to be played with. Being 6 years old and never doubting anything my dad ever told me, I fell in love with black Barbie and ended up playing with her without disliking her for her dark skin tone.
I am truly grateful for the fact that my parents bought black Barbie for me to teach me an important lesson in the equalities of human beings as a whole. However, I often wonder how much issues like this contribute to young girls beliefs in the real world.
Seraph of the Rose
It reminds me very much the scene in Barbieland in which the young man was discussing himself making the doll clothes on the top bed of his bunk. I was on the opposite end of the spectrum in which i wanted to do what the boys were doing. Changing the voiceboxes in barbie was an excellent way to bring up gender norms in the simple catch phrases of each figure.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like its almost another form of the reverse shoplifting discussed in the pop culture blog, it would have been so cool to get one of those hacked barbies!
Sushi Warrior
A great part of this culture jam was the fact that they stuck stickers saying “call your local news” on the backs of the boxes to make sure that the media got wind of this form of culture jamming.". I feel like a huge part of using culture jamming to its full potential is to get the message out to as many people as possible. Getting culture jams on the news or other mainstream medias will help counteract all the poor advertisements out there. Having culture jams showed on TV puts a solution right in the middle of the problem. When more people are aware of what is being done, the smaller acts of culture jamming will become more noticeable to all the 'untrained' eyes out there!
ReplyDeleteThe effectiveness of culture jamming depends on how many people are aware of it. Education is key to catching culture jams and sharing the message is important as well. If no one knows culture jams are happening then no one is learning from them. Society needs to know we need that two-way information flow. We must share with each other that we need to fight back and stop corporations overpowering us and feeding us disrespectful information and advertisements.
-Goldilocks