COLLECTIVE TAMAYO: Remembering Barbie

OMG she is alive! Barbie is not just a doll! she has a soul!

Australian model Erika Heynatz touches a 2.1 metre high Barbie doll chocolate mud
cake to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the world's most popular doll.
The 1,200kg cake covered in gold icing, silk and 2,000 Swarovski crystals

The americanized and well marketed version of the german Bild lili doll that was also built on a comic strip,Barbie was fist exhibited in the First International Toy Fair in 9th of March 1959. This date is considered the birth of Barbie.The idea for the doll came when Mrs Ruth Huddler watched her daughter play with paper dolls and suggested the idea to her husband who was the owner for Mattel, Inc. at the time. The idea was not appealing to the husband but after a visit to Germany and upon seeing the Bid lili German toy the story began.

During those years Barbie was marketed as th image for the perfect woman and created a cult of troubled teenagers who thrived to look liker her. the thin, tall, blue eyed and blond image is the new standard of beauty resulting in anorexic and bulimic troubled girls.

I remember buying my first Barbie, long hair blonde and wearing a swimming suites. At that time those dolls were expensive and they were hard to find - i am not that old but come on it was hard to find anything in the Jordan. We used to compare original ones and fake one by looking at their arms. Straight arms meant that it was not while bended arms were the sign of originality!I used to sue clothes that i cant wear for them and try to imagine how their lives would be, a princess on a deserted island or a rock star with fans all over her. It represented a life i would never have.

But the older i became i realized what this doll has been marketed to do. Barbie was highly marketed to follow the trends and the cultures of different areas. It became a pop icon in no time not only for the western world but it created a must purchase object on an international scale. The thing here it was never an original product. It was a doll that infiltrated pop culture and manifested itself in different places, the Pilot Barbie, the hot star Barbie, the hippie Barbie, the astronaut Barbie and down to Sarah Palin Barbie!

In 1992 a new talking Barbie was published with more than 270 phrases such as; I want to go shopping, i want to eat Pizza and math class is tough! promoting an unrealistic image of women, concentration on clothes and pretty blonde hair accompanied by those phrases had made Barbie the ultimate image that presents the proverb- be beautiful and shut up.

The birth of the dolls on the 9th of March which is also Women's day is a little bit ironic. The image for the modernized strong women that is celebrated internationally has to share that celebration with Ms Barbie who reflects the image of the stupid, foolish woman or at least this is the vision of Barbie now!

Every thing comes to an end and so the beloved hot Barbie image. Pop culture is standing against this figure that it once created. artists and activists are finding ways to diminished her essence and break the taboos that are revolving around her. Showing this piece as a regular bloated woman who eats, drinks, kills or even farts and i dont mean butterflies farts!

Right now as a result teenagers are looking at more hip and modern images to follow such as Bratz or other entertainment electronic devices leaving the company to break on the edge. Mettle.Inc are trying to boost the popularity of this ending glory for their beloved doll on her 50th birthday but sadly the cake and the fashion show did not give the intended results!