In a stunt that has this particular mother slash woman slash feminist slash human being seeing red, Barbie and Sports Illustrated have teamed up in an unapologetic act of what the fuckness.
Barbie is this year’s cover model for the 50th anniversary edition of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (which is on magazine stands tomorrow, Tuesday). This is Mattel’s attempt at rebranding Barbie after piss poor sales during this past holiday season.
It would seem that the line of thinking went as follows…
Parents (namely moms) are more apt to purchase Barbie for their children (namely daughters) if she is pictured on the cover of an adult magazine geared toward men interested in oggling women in scantily clad bikinis. And, as a co-worker pointed out, Don’t we assume that the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is popular in sperm banks?
Um, gross. Who wants to buy a doll for their child that is now the emblem of male masturbation?
I just. I can’t even. *headdesk*
The hashtag #unapologetic only makes the message worse (as though that were possible). It’s unabashedly aggressive, and unnecessarily so for marketing a CHILD’S TOY. And it’s in line with Rihanna’s latest album titled UNAPOLOGETIC. Don’t even get me started on the damage she’s doing to women everywhere with her “brand” and life choices.
I am at a loss.
Perhaps most devastating is the reality that there are in fact some women that would indeed be persuaded to purchase Barbie for their daughter as an emblem of the most desirable female figure (as being a cover model for Sports Illustrated has come to signify). And that breaks my heart for those children who will be indoctrinated into the same lines of thinking as their parents, assuming that female beauty is the pinnacle of a woman’s success and value.
I recommend you take a read of this article in Forbes that presented the opinions of a number of young women. They are far more eloquent and far less crass in their analysis:
So while it would be easy to frame this campaign as unilaterally bad, perhaps there’s an (ironic) silver lining: maybe replacing images of women with that of a doll will actually force those who have (#)unapologetically consumed those images in the past to realize that maybe they should be apologizing after all — that doing so isn’t “appreciation,” but objectification, plain and simple. – Julie Zeilinger, 20
The swimsuit edition has fairly consistent images every year of a corporately-determined “perfect” woman in a swimsuit. With a doll on the cover, the editors are essentially saying that a fictional image is consistent with what they normally do, implying that a “perfect” woman is, in fact, fictional. Essentially, the public shouldn’t perceive anyone on the cover of the SI swimsuit edition as “real.” That’s actually a pretty empowering message (albeit, probably unintentional). Therefore, I don’t necessarily think that Barbie on the cover is inherently more problematic than a photo-shopped human model when it comes to the public’s perception of beauty. – Julia Landauer, 22
What do you think about this decision? I’m very intrigued to hear from people from all vantage points on this one.
