Barbie to appear in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition

[Kheldarson]

And I don't know how to react.

http://adage.com/article/media/barbi...-issue/291629/

I think laughing fits at just how ridiculous this campaign feels. I mean, who's the target here?

It also seems to smack of highlighting the obsession on perfection in women's bodies that is screaming through modern media right now.

But I'm still leaning more towards it being ridiculous. And I'm #unapologetic about that

[siead_lietrathua]

that's.... awesome! and hilarious.
since it's an specialty/ campaign doll, it'll be targeted to adult collectors anyway. so good on them for the tongue in cheek approach to it.

[Gravekeeper]

Man, that photo really highlights what sort of horrifying fucking mutant Barbie is >.>

I can see this backfiring on them pretty quick even if they're trying to be tongue in cheek. Especially given the tone deaf spokesmen there.

[siead_lietrathua]

meh, the barbie dolls always have controversy. i remember when they did a round the world series and a few people got up in arms for the one wearing mexican garb because she had a passport... which was standard across the line. (kinda like how Monster High comes with journals.)
here's a fun list of random ones. http://theweek.com/article/slide/232...ersial-barbies

[Gravekeeper]

meh, the barbie dolls always have controversy.

I'm referring to her body shape though, not how they're dressing her up. She's a horrible mutant. She should be crawling on all fours ( she only has child's size 3 feet ) dying of chronic diarrhea and malnutrition. I mean, I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was this bad. Sheesh.

Mattel has steadfastly refused to change it ( and in fact made the doll even more unrealistic in 2000 ) despite their product being clinically linked to body image problems in young girls. Typically with stupid reasons like its not possible because then clothes wouldn't fit on her.

Despite the fact there are a number of other realistic dolls created specifically against Barbie who wear clothes just fine. -.-

[Kheldarson]

But....but GK! Then we'd be able to buy off brand clothes for her to wear and Mattel will lose money!

[siead_lietrathua]

i think the clothing argument is that they wouldn't be able to wear the currently available barbie lines of clothes. which i can dig. barbie clothes are really fidgity. it's hard to find other dolls that fit them perfectly. they're either too big on things like Bratz or too tight on the more realistic bodies.
as to the realistic body thing.... ehhhh, it's still just a doll. Monster High are way more weirdly proportioned. seriously, their spines arch so oddly, and their waists are thinner than a barbie's (their bust just isn't as big, since they are teen-age characters)

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.
so ones like 5stardoll or generic dollarstore, which only have minimal articulation, tend to be more realistic. wheras a monster high or barbie fashonista tend to have skinnier arms and weirdly bulbous legs, because it has to thin out around the joints so they can sit. even the old barbies, with the wire-articulation, needed to be thinner in the limbs so the wire could actually force the vinyl.
sadly, i don't have any barbies to compare with at the moment, those ones got sold after modding. but i can show you the jointing issues, even with the skinnier arms, since MH has a similar joint system.

so, 1 shows the weird MH bodies. wayyy creepier than a barbie lol. 2 is to show the limited range it has, even with skinny arms, because of it being ball-jointed. the big elbow in front is just to show compared with double joints. and the third is to show that, even with a thicker limbed doll, you need it skinny at the joints for any range of motion. (the range the big one has also is because it's elastic. with ball-and-post it's hard to get an extensive range)

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. but with a fashion doll, that many joints just looks odd. Even the liv doll with double-jointed knees looks hella weird at times.


(pardon the weirdness of the doll, it's in the middle of a modjob)


edit: tossing in a link to an obistu doll body on ebay. it shows how more joints kinda wreck the body, and also nessessitate some very odd proportions.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Obitsu-OOAK-2...item461a982635
also, wayyy more unrealistic than a barbie, even when clothed. their feet are the same size as a barbie, to give an idea of size.

[Gravekeeper]

as to the realistic body thing.... ehhhh, it's still just a doll.

I repeat, clinically proven to cause body image problems in young girls. You can't wave that away with "Just a doll". And yes, Monster High dolls are even more fucked up, but they aren't the #1 selling doll in the world and part of the American psyche.

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.

What? No you don't. Hell, that's the entire advantage of ball joints, they're more like human joints. Ball joints allow a pelvis that works the same way as a human pelvis and thus can be of the same dimensions.

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. but with a fashion doll, that many joints just looks odd. Even the liv doll with double-jointed knees looks hella weird at times.

Uh. You have seen a Barbie doll without clothes, right? Aside from wire vinyl knees and elbows, the originals were horrific. Also, you know that there were ball joint versions of Barbie going back decades, right? And that modern Barbie is ball jointed in the exact same way you're complaining about? >.>

[TheHuckster]

What? No you don't. Hell, that's the entire advantage of ball joints, they're more like human joints. Ball joints allow a pelvis that works the same way as a human pelvis and thus can be of the same dimensions.

Human "ball joints" in the pelvis consist of skeletal parts. Unless you design a Barbie doll with flesh to cover the much thinner ball joints, no, it's not the same. In fact, the fact that Barbie dolls resemble skeletons is probably more realistic joint-wise than if they didn't.

[BlaqueKatt]

I'm referring to her body shape though, not how they're dressing her up. She's a horrible mutant. She should be crawling on all fours ( she only has child's size 3 feet ) dying of chronic diarrhea and malnutrition. I mean, I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was this bad. Sheesh.

erm, I have a child's size 3 feet(only 5'4", but 32D bewbs)

[the_std]

erm, I have a child's size 3 feet(only 5'4", but 32D bewbs)

Yes, except we're obviously not talking about someone with slightly-outside-the-norm proportions. We're talking about a highly-unrealistic standard of someone with a waist smaller than her head. Her ankles and wrists are so tiny that she would not be able to lift anything remotely weighty. Her legs and arms are almost 1.5x longer than even the outliers of average on a real person.

All of this added together means that she is entirely unrealistic, and a terrible role model for kids.

Sources here and here.

[Gravekeeper]

Human "ball joints" in the pelvis consist of skeletal parts. Unless you design a Barbie doll with flesh to cover the much thinner ball joints, no, it's not the same. In fact, the fact that Barbie dolls resemble skeletons is probably more realistic joint-wise than if they didn't.

I didn't say it was anatomically correct. I said it was more realistic. As in it offers a range of motion closer to the human body. We're not going to get a super 100% realistic fashion doll with working musculature and real skin and flesh covering its joints. If we had that kind of technology Barbie would sure as hell be the last place it got applied.

Also, Barbie did not resemble a skeleton. The original Barbie hip joints were basically just a stick nailed to a block with another pyramid that had vague breast lumps stuck to the top of that. Her legs went forward and back, period. So I don't know what you're on about. Especially since Barbie has used ball joint hips for a couple of decades now.

This is why Jem always stomped Barbie's ass when I was staying at my cousin's place. Because Jem had ball joint hips before they became the norm for Barbie. So she was capable of a much wider variety of Kung Fu.

Barbie's only two moves were front kick and Heil Hitler.

[siead_lietrathua]

for referance for everyone, this is the original barbie
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2007/05/09/barbie/

which really is not that off proportion from other modern dolls. her arms and legs are thin, sure, but again it's a fairly thin wire that has to bend a thick vinyl skin. broken-leg-wires is a bane with barbies and a big reason why i don't use them. having to frig with the wire inside a thicker base would be that much worse.
think of it like artificial flowers. really easy to bend the individual stems on the skinny ones but harder to bend the thicker stems cuz of all the tape.

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. the obitsu i showed not only has elbows and wrists, they have a good rotating shoulder and a second joint in their upper arm to rotate the arm around that way, and they are still a pretty limited mortion. i used to have an obitsu, and the biggest bane was, if you tried to force an pose the wrong way, their joints would pop apart. huuge pain. even this more realistic body will have motion issues because of how her hip joint comes down so low on the legs.
http://www.monkeydepot.com/Boxed_Fig..._p/plb0007.htm

it's worse with double-jointed dolls, where having too thick of a limb can prevent kneeling. i found a blog with a liv doll in various poses, one of the barbie-price range dolls with double-joint legs. you can see how, even with the better jointing system, because her legs are too thick around the joints she can't kneel fully (by which i mean butt to heels of feet).
http://vansdolltreasures.blogspot.ca...to-barbie.html


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. granted, the example i'm posting is a much larger scale doll, but the issue is the same. without her thinner middle i would never be able to get this much of a slouch. she also has a large range of side-to-side movement.

[siead_lietrathua]

male dolls have the same issue by the way. wither you need to sock in a ton of joints, or thin them out. but fashion dolls also have the bane of having to look good, so the more joints you sock in the worse they look as a fashion doll.
it doesn't matter how distorted a GI Joe looks so long as he can pose well.
here's a male body to show what i mean. i can't remember if he's obistu or volks. i wanna say obitsu.


and this is a volks with a massive amount of jointing. 4 torso pieces alone.
http://www.volksusa.com/2227ne0009.html

[wolfie]

A few things I'd like to point out:
- Barbie was inspired by an "adult novelty" doll.
- Barbie and Ken got their names from the developer's children. Sort of puts a different twist on their relationship.
- At least you can't claim that SI is ageist - the cover model for their current swimsuit issue is 55 years old.