Newswise — Toymaker Mattel announced it would begin selling the traditionally thin-framed Barbie doll in three new body types and seven different skin tones. Noliwe Rooks is an associate professor in Africana Studies and Feminist, Gender, Sexuality Studies at Cornell University. If history is a guide, Rooks says we may find that an embrace of a Barbie with a larger body may not find widespread economic support.
Bio: http://www.asrc.cornell.edu/people/rooks.cfm
Rooks says:
“I hope that curvy Barbie finds an enthusiastic and receptive audience amongst little girls. But just because some of us believe that larger proportioned dolls are ultimately good for a society that considers itself supportive of women, we can’t know if consumer dollars will follow.
“Indeed, if history is a guide, we may find that an embrace of a Barbie with a larger body may not find widespread economic support.
“That is what happened a few years ago during the first iteration of the Dove Real Beauty ads where the well researched and ground breaking international ad campaign publicly displayed larger sized women on billboards and asked the public to use their cell phones to ‘vote’ their acceptance and support.
“Not only did callers describe the images as disgusting and vote overwhelmingly to have them removed, but some viewers filed complaints with the FCC saying that billboards of women they considered fat were disgusting and offensive.
“Given the fact that in relation to curvy Barbie, one news outlet has already run a story about five and six-year-old girls calling the doll fat and ridiculing its proportions, it’s far from clear that there is a long term market for the new release.”
Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews.
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