Barbie to appear in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition

[siead_lietrathua]

- At least you can't claim that SI is ageist - the cover model for their current swimsuit issue is 55 years old.

ok... that was a good one.

[Gravekeeper]

Here's the original Barbie in unpleasant clinical detail. She didn't move a hell of a lot.

I honestly don't understand exactly what or why you're arguing here. You would have to bulk up a doll considerably before the joints really began to suffer movement limitations. 12 inch GI Joe's use a similar design to modern Barbie without any issues and they're certainly beefier. So I don't know what sort of standard you're trying to hold them too but it seems absurdly high given that we're talking about Barbie dolls.

Additionally, your complaint about more joints in general looking bad. That's a direct trade off for range of movement. Limb thickness doesn't have much to do with it. Chest thickness sure, but Bodybuilder Bob isn't going to be as flexible as Yoga Teacher Barbie in real life either. So it doesn't make sense to level that complaint against a doll.

Besides, unless you're planning to strut the dolls around naked all the time the appearance of the joints isn't a huge issue. It certainly isn't one for Barbie, the best selling doll in the entire world. The less seams you have from joints, the more realistic it looks, sure, but the less realistic its posability becomes. Its much preferable for the doll to be able to assume more life like poses.

Putting this strange argument aside, the original point of this entire cafuffle is that Barbie harms the body image of young girls and there's no reason for it. I mean when Lara Croft dolls have more realistic body proportions than the modern Barbie doll there's a serious problem going on here.

Barbie would barely lose any range of movement if she had more realistic proportions and the only area she'd really lose a little range would be the chest. That's a pretty negligible trade off for stopping her from psychologically damaging children don't you think? >.>

[siead_lietrathua]

I honestly don't understand exactly what or why you're arguing here...

well, first i was just talking about how she's not the weirdest shape body out there, then i was explaining why modern versions have skinny limbs for the jointing. which, in short, is that thin wires need thin vinyl, and ball joints need thinning around the joint areas to allow limbs to fold back properly.

i'm not complaining about it. i'm explaining WHY they are skinny.

but, rather than reiterating, i'll take that same image you posted and explain what i did to it.
the green parts are where the joints sit. in the shoulders, wide pegs fit into the body cavity. in the hips, balls attached to the torso sink into cups inside the legs (in most dolls, some have elastic strung through the hips to allow more motion). it's why you need wide shoulders, but hips can be thinner if need be.
the black and red lines are where you would widen out the torso and limbs on one side, to make them more naturally proportioned. since the doll doesn't have the ability to lift it's arms or legs out to the side, the blue spots are where the dolls would rub against itself/ any clothes they wear. which is a bad thing in a fashion doll. soft vinyl can wear, and stain, stick together if it gets hot enough, all kinds of unpleasantness.
i didn't draw in the wires, but they are not thick at all, and that extra few MM of vinyl means needing thicker wire, that still may have posing issues, or a higher risk of snapped-wire from the stress.

for fun, i also snagged the image of the barbie someone made with realistic porportions. you can see how the arms are held out a bit to keep the hands from hitting the body, and how they really widened the hips out so that her legs wouldn't rub on each other. and, all it's joints are limited. like, the neck joint bothers me. she wouldn't be able to look up or down, just turn side to side. thou, granted, she's just a 3d print. but i've seen some crazy 3d print dolls before with astounding articulation, so it's not really an excuse.
http://www.3ders.org/articles/201307...ual-woman.html



also, GI Joes have way more complicated jointing then a barbie, even the fashinonista ones. modern GI Joes, so common i can get them in bulk at thrift shops, have tons of joints. in their arms alone there is a shoulder, upper arm, double elbows, forearm joint, wrist, and sometimes hand joints.
fashinonistas have a shoulder, elbow, wrist. and those are set up as post-and-ball. any extra motion of the post in the socket is what seems to give them a greater range, but it's flawed because they can't bend their elbow as much, the arm itself gets in the way.
edit: if you're gonna argue that a low-price fashion doll and action figure have the same level of jointing, you are very wrong.


and i'm sorry but in the case of the OP, i think we should be more worried about who lets their kid read the swimsuit edition more than that barbie would be in it if we're gonna worry about kids in this particular case.

[siead_lietrathua]

posted seperate on purpose, since i'm more than well aware the jointing thing is a tangent:

we can't always use "think of the kids" as a valid argument. when dealing with adult oriented magazines, books, movies or etc we need to understand that invisible barrier between "this is for adult" and "this is for kids".

so yes, while barbie is a toy marketed to both child and adult collectors, the article is about her being in sports illustrated swimsuit edition. a magazine editon that is not only adult-targeted, but often joked about as being nothing more than wank-fodder. the "think of the kids" argument rings a bit false when it's targeted towards barbie's body INSTEAD of targeting the idea that having a toy in the magazine might encourage someone below it's readership age to try and buy it.

kids seeing an unrealistic toy, and kids seeing photo-shopped half naked adults are two different ballgames.

[Gravekeeper]

i'm not complaining about it. i'm explaining WHY they are skinny.

And I'm saying they don't need to be super skinny for ball jointing. That's one of the biggest advantages of a ball joint over a hinge joint.

i'll take that same image you posted and explain what i did to it.

I know what they did too it. I don't post in-depth on a topic I don't research or have experience with. I likewise have figures of a bulkier nature that have no issues with said ball joints, hence I am arguing otherwise.

for fun, i also snagged the image of the barbie someone made with realistic porportions.

Yes, I've seen that. Seeing as that is literally the first image that comes up when you research this topic. Also the point of that was just to show the problem with Barbie's dimensions. Not to re-engineer the entire thing. So no "excuse" needs to be made.

also, GI Joes have way more complicated jointing then a barbie, even the fashinonista ones. modern GI Joes, so common i can get them in bulk at thrift shops, have tons of joints. in their arms alone there is a shoulder, upper arm, double elbows, forearm joint, wrist, and sometimes hand joints.

Er, no. What modern GI Joe has over Fashionista Barbie is a ball hinged shoulder, double hinged knees and ball hinged ankles for epic action poses. The latter two only appearing on the higher quality figures. Otherwise the points of articulation are very similar if not lesser than a Barbie Fashionista on the smaller figures.

edit: if you're gonna argue that a low-price fashion doll and action figure have the same level of jointing, you are very wrong.

You realize a Barbie doll costs twice as much as GI Joe, right?

and i'm sorry but in the case of the OP, i think we should be more worried about who lets their kid read the swimsuit edition more than that barbie would be in it if we're gonna worry about kids in this particular case.

But that's not what we were discussing. We were discussing the effect of Barbie on the body image of children. I pointed out this could be fixed very easily by Mattel and has been fixed by other doll companies. You deflected this by saying Monster High is worse. I argued that the point is not that there's something out there worse than this. Especially given Barbie is the #1 best seller.

You then began this odd argument about how range of motion = skinny and comparing range of motion to articulation when they are not the same thing. Now you've undermined the entirety of your own argument by using GI Joe as an example.

Furthermore, you are approaching this topic as an adult doll collector. Adult doll collector's are not who we are discussing. You're old enough to know Barbie's body dimensions are bullshit. The problem is not you and Barbie, the problem is Barbie and your 5 year old daughter. For her, Barbie is an expectation and goal for what she thinks/hopes she will grow up into and look like. When in fact Barbie is an unobtainable goal.

That is the problem.

[HYHYBT]

Are we going to insist cartoon characters be realistically drawn, too? It's the same thing: stylized, rather than realistic, body.

[Kheldarson]

Are we going to insist cartoon characters be realistically drawn, too? It's the same thing: stylized, rather than realistic, body.

Well, given the debate in another thread about the PowerPuff Girls, maybe we should sometimes. If there were more normal women portrayed in media, then the stylistic woman (like Barbie) would stand out as stylized rather than the standard portrayal.

[Gravekeeper]

Are we going to insist cartoon characters be realistically drawn, too? It's the same thing: stylized, rather than realistic, body.

Did you miss the part where research has shown a link between shit like Barbie and body image / self esteem problem in children? Or would you like to discuss how half of 3-6 year olds worry about being too fat and 90% of all eating disorders are females age 12-25? >.>

Or how about the Fiji Effect? When TV was introduced to Nadoga in 1995 in the span of 3 years they went from literally never have a case of an eating disorder amongst the population, to 74% of adolescent girls reporting they felt too fat and 69% reporting dieting.

Its a serious problem and it needs addressing.

[siead_lietrathua]

Furthermore, you are approaching this topic as an adult doll collector. Adult doll collector's are not who we are discussing...

you brought kids and body shape into it though... before that it was about the doll being in SI. which is an adult media. so, should the argument have been "man her body fucks up kids images of themselves", or should it have been "man this might encourage kids to pick up sports illustrated swimsuit issue".


also, barbies are low-range for what you can buy in a store (12-30 bucks for the kids ones, same as bratz, mh etc), you don't get into the 50$+ range until you start getting into massive accesssories, or adult collector dolls like the holiday sets.

and no, you keep missing the point of the joint issue. GI Joes with the limited articulation you posted are also shitty as fuck posers and have the odd triangle-shape torso, like a barbie. you are validating what i'm saying. that the more joints the chunkier (and wonkier) things are made, the less joints the skinnier.
all male figures here to show you (#3, 4, 5 on the image show all the joints). the papa munster on the end with the more joints, has a more realistic and less triangle shaped body. the ones in the middle have less joints and are more triangle shaped, and would have the same posing issues as a barbie does. the only small advantage a barbie would have is that her elbow, in some models, is on a post instead of hinging the two parts together. it won't allow the elbow to bend further, it just allows forward rotation.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1r38b50hSr...es-Set%2B1.jpg

[siead_lietrathua]

Did you miss the part where research has shown a link between shit like Barbie and body image / self esteem problem in children? Or would you like to discuss how half of 3-6 year olds worry about being too fat and 90% of all eating disorders are females age 12-25? >.>

Or how about the Fiji Effect? When TV was introduced to Nadoga in 1995 in the span of 3 years they went from literally never have a case of an eating disorder amongst the population, to 74% of adolescent girls reporting they felt too fat and 69% reporting dieting.

Its a serious problem and it needs addressing.

if you really expect that only the dolls and toys and images and TV are to blame, ok. i prefer to ask why parents are letting their kids play with/ read/ watch things outside their age range.
it's like parents bitching that their 5 year old may have picked up bad language from a pg13 movie. or the parents that buy their kids GTA5 and then freak out about the violence in it affecting their kids.
no shit, you shouldn't have got it for them!
a three year old with barbies? an age where they will constantly be losing or breaking the pieces for them? wow. there are dolls actually ment for that age group. just cuz your kid asks for something doesn't mean you have to give it to them. (and just because it says 3+ on the box doesn't mean it's designed for them. it just means they won't kill themselves using it)

you regulate what TV your kid watches, don't use it as a babysitter. you regulate what your kids read. don't go handing them books and comics for teenagers. you regulate what toys they play with. if research shows that XYZ effects a kid's mentality in a certain age range, you don't buy it for them!

seriously, a parent controls a child's world until they hit school and beyond.

[Gravekeeper]

so, should the argument have been "man her body fucks up kids images of themselves", or should it have been "man this might encourage kids to pick up sports illustrated swimsuit issue".

That's irrelevant, I brought up the body image problem and you responded to it by saying it was "just a doll", then saying Monster High is worse and then put forth that they don't make chunkier dolls due to joint issues. When they clearly do.

Thus that was the topic. You can't retroactively change the topic when you willingly engaged in it.

also, barbies are low-range for what you can buy in a store (12-30 bucks for the kids ones, same as bratz, mh etc), you don't get into the 50$+ range until you start getting into massive accesssories, or adult collector dolls like the holiday sets.

Low range Barbies are around $16-20 on average. A GI Joe is around $8-10. I price checked before I opened my mouth. -.-

and no, you keep missing the point of the joint issue. GI Joes with the limited articulation you posted are also shitty as fuck posers and have the odd triangle-shape torso, like a barbie. you are validating what i'm saying.

I didn't even post any GI Joes ( and Papa Munster is incredibly disturbing. Why does that exist? >.> ). I recognize #4, I use to have him ( Cobra Viper. 12 inch Snake Eyes needed something to pummel ). But he's from the 90s when there was a a brief relaunch of the 12 inch figures. Which were, yeah, basically just a standard male doll model they put military clothes on and gave light up weapons too. They didn't want to commit to any custom designs.

The modern 12 inch figures are beefier in the limbs and less so in the chest. A tad more balanced out bulk wise. But they're a custom body now.

that the more joints the chunkier (and wonkier) things are made, the less joints the skinnier.

What? You posted a 4 paragraph thesis with image references arguing that limbs had to be thin for ball joints otherwise range of motion would be grievously affected. Not that more joints = chunky. Less joints = skinny.

I argued that there were plenty of dolls and figures that were chunkier than Barbie or Anorexia High that were not meaningfully affected by the extra bulk ( Hell, the Emme doll was made specifically to spite Barbie ). Thus there is no reason for Mattel to keep Barbie's mutant stick beast figure especially given the ever increasing criticism they're facing.

And this it seems especially tone deaf for them to go to SI and declare hater's gonna hate and Barbie's mutant stick beast figure is just her being herself and we should all celebrate her individuality.

[Gravekeeper]

if you really expect that only the dolls and toys and images and TV are to blame, ok. i prefer to ask why parents are letting their kids play with/ read/ watch things outside their age range.

Barbie IS their age range.

a three year old with barbies? an age where they will constantly be losing or breaking the pieces for them? wow. there are dolls actually ment for that age group.

It's marketed specifically at ages 3-6. It use to aim more for 3-9 but its been losing market share to stuff like Monster High which is marketed at ages 6-12.

You can't compare GTA, which is clearly labelled M with Barbie, who is clearly labeled ages 3 and up.

you regulate what TV your kid watches, don't use it as a babysitter. you regulate what your kids read. don't go handing them books and comics for teenagers. you regulate what toys they play with. if research shows that XYZ effects a kid's mentality in a certain age range, you don't buy it for them!

It affects teenagers as well. There are 10 times as many diet product ads in any given magazine aimed at teen girls. Also, you can't control your child's entire world until they're 21.

Blaming the parents is ass backwards. Yes, parents should monitor and discuss things with their child when it comes to important issues like this. But you can't have a multi-billionaire corporation specifically trying to hook your child 24/7 and excuse them of responsibility by saying the parent should be a 100% perfect shield between their children and society.

[siead_lietrathua]

Thus that was the topic. You can't retroactively change the topic when you willingly engaged in it.

there's a diffrence between engaging in a topic and starting one. i said that "you brought kids and body shape into it though... before that it was about the doll being in SI"

Low range Barbies are around $16-20 on average. A GI Joe is around $8-10. I price checked before I opened my mouth. -.-

walmart.ca has the beach-set barbies starting at 5 bucks, and the mariposa style line at around 10 bucks. the career dolls at around 16 and it goes up from there. i also checked prices. i also said nothing about GI Joe's pricing, i said that "barbies are low-range for what you can buy in a store" the only stuff cheaper are the generics.

and Papa Munster is incredibly disturbing. Why does that exist? >.> ).

i think it was an anniversary thing. and barbies from the 90's had worse bodies than now, so when you mentioned the pyramid on a stick back on page 2 i figured you were talking about the 90's barbie. which makes sense, that's the one you and i probably grew up with. if we wanna talk about 2000's and up barbies, they have changed her body quite a lot from the triangle on a stick. http://thehairpin.com/2011/01/spot-t...d-2000s-barbie

What? You posted a 4 paragraph thesis with image references arguing that limbs had to be thin for ball joints otherwise range of motion would be grievously affected. Not that more joints = chunky. Less joints = skinny.

just gonna go back and quote myself form before. from my first post on the joint argument:
"i've seen this argument in the doll community before, with jointed dolls. wondering why they don't make chunky ones. the problem is, once you're dealing with joints, you have to keep the limbs thinner to allow a range of movement, or put in a friggton of joints to compensate."
"it's a big reason as to why decent action figures boast a zillion articulation points. you need them to compensate for the muscles of the figure"

second post on the joint issue:
"and i never said ball joints didn't make motion better.... i said that you need thin limbs for a decent range of motion, or add in extra joints."
"when you get to torso joints, it gets even more tricky. if you don't have a slimmer middle piece than the waist and bust joint it can limit posing quite a bit"

later post:
"male dolls have the same issue by the way. wither you need to sock in a ton of joints, or thin them out" (obv. that's supposed to be either but i didn't wanna be accused of altering the original text to fix a typo)
i also posted a link to a heavily jointed, and chunkier, male body to show that if you want them thicker you need to add more joints. here's the link again. http://www.volksusa.com/2227ne0009.html

later post:

"which, in short, is that thin wires need thin vinyl, and ball joints need thinning around the joint areas to allow limbs to fold back properly. "
"the black and red lines are where you would widen out the torso and limbs on one side, to make them more naturally proportioned. since the doll doesn't have the ability to lift it's arms or legs out to the side, the blue spots are where the dolls would rub against itself/ any clothes they wear."
"fashinonistas have a shoulder, elbow, wrist. and those are set up as post-and-ball. any extra motion of the post in the socket is what seems to give them a greater range, but it's flawed because they can't bend their elbow as much, the arm itself gets in the way. "

later post:
"GI Joes with the limited articulation you posted are also shitty as fuck posers and have the odd triangle-shape torso, like a barbie. you are validating what i'm saying. that the more joints the chunkier (and wonkier) things are made, the less joints the skinnier. "

i aso don't get this distinction you made between a ball and a hinge joint back on page 2. unless you'r dealing with a strung-elastic figure, all ball joints are hinge joints. you just don't see it, because instead of having the obvious metal post they use the plastic inside the ball to hinge the two pieces. it's only called ball joint because it looks like one once the post is hidden inside the arm casing. trust me, there is a world of people out there that rip off your head for referring to anything like a barbie as ball jointed.


to your second post:

DID I SAY that parents had to be a shield 100% of the damn time? no. don't put words in my mouth. i said:
"you regulate what TV your kid watches, don't use it as a babysitter. you regulate what your kids read. don't go handing them books and comics for teenagers. you regulate what toys they play with. if research shows that XYZ effects a kid's mentality in a certain age range, you don't buy it for them!

seriously, a parent controls a child's world until they hit school and beyond."

a parent DOES control their child's world. they pick what foods, toys and other come into their home. if they don't research things before giving a kid something, that IS their issue.
if a kid brings home something that you don't think is appropriate for them, then you TALK about it and explain why you don't want them to have it. if your teenage girl is reading magazines, and you see it's affecting her, explain to her why it's shit, and toss it. get them involved in something else, and explain to them why you are doing it.

is it really hard to say to your 3 year old "hey, i know you like this dolly, but i think you're a little too young. let's go look at another toy". or to your teen "hey, i see you've been getting a little down over the stuff in that magazine. let me show you some sites that explain how those ads are really fake" and then go look at the tons of articles out there on how photoshopping models leads to body image issues.

and again. "just cuz your kid asks for something doesn't mean you have to give it to them. (and just because it says 3+ on the box doesn't mean it's designed for them. it just means they won't kill themselves using it)"

[siead_lietrathua]

seriously, i just don't get it. for a parent to argue that barbie made their kid have low self esteem is, to me, the exact same thing as blaming Mc Donalds for making your kid fat. Who's the one buying all the kids meals?
if we have a horrible obese child, the parents are lambasted for giving the kid whatever and what volume of food they want. while the marketing is there, so is the understanding that it's the PARENTS that bought their kid enough food to feed a family.
but if we have a kid that thinks she's too fat, that's only the fault of marketing campaigns? parent's are now exempt from responsibility? it's all the same thing. they knew it was something that could effect their kid, or they saw the effect it was having on their kid, and still just gave the kid what it wanted.

i'm not just talking out of my ass. by the end of grade school i was morbidly obese, and my brother was smoking, drinking, and doing pot. because our parent's didn't act like parents, and let us take care of ourselves. so yeah, i know first hand how a lack of parenting can be more negative on kids than the influences around them.

[Kheldarson]

seriously, i just don't get it. for a parent to argue that barbie made their kid have low self esteem is, to me, the exact same thing as blaming Mc Donalds for making your kid fat. Who's the one buying all the kids meals?

There's a major difference here. With McDonald's, their commercials don't make you fat. In fact, beyond possibly creating a craving, their commercials do nothing. Only buying and consuming their food causes an effect.

Barbie, and other forms of media, do not need an active consumption to have an effect. Turn on a TV: she, and the idea of what makes a woman perfect, is there. Look at a magazine in line at the store? There it is. Walking through a toy aisle? Yep. And let's not forget: SI and/or Mattel was advertising this issue on a billboard in Time Square.

So how do you keep your child from an image that's, well, everywhere?

if we have a horrible obese child, the parents are lambasted for giving the kid whatever and what volume of food they want. while the marketing is there, so is the understanding that it's the PARENTS that bought their kid enough food to feed a family.
but if we have a kid that thinks she's too fat, that's only the fault of marketing campaigns? parent's are now exempt from responsibility? it's all the same thing. they knew it was something that could effect their kid, or they saw the effect it was having on their kid, and still just gave the kid what it wanted.

Because, again, you don't have to actively purchase an image to have it affect you.

Should parents talk with their kids about body image and how media lies? Of course. Should they control what and how much media is brought into the house? Absolutely.

Can a parent be expected to be able to block every single image though? No. And that's where it becomes a larger issue. You mentioned in the PPG thread that your image issues came mostly from your mom. And, granted, that's a good portion of where it starts.

But our media reinforces that. It makes sales off of reminding women you're not perfect, but buy our shit and you will be! Barbie has a perfect life, so do all these celebrities who look almost like her! All you have to do is fit this one. Single. Image.

During teenage years, when you're already having issues and pulling away from your parents and their advice, that's a powerfully pervasive message.