Ann Ducille on “ethnic” Barbies
Crossposted from Sociological Images:Seeing is Believing
Ann DuCille, in her book Skin Trade, takes two issues with “ethnic” Barbies.
First, she takes issue with the fact that “ethnic” Barbies are made from the same mold as “real” Barbies (though sometimes with different paint on their faces). This reifies a white standard of beauty as THE standard of beauty. Black women are beautiful only insofar as they look like white women (see also this post). DuCille writes:
…today Barbie dolls come in a rainbow coalition of colors, races, ethnicities, and nationalities, [but] all of those dolls look remarkably like the stereotypical white Barbie, modified only by a dash of color and a change of clothes.
Consider:
But, second, DuCille also takes takes issue with the idea that Mattell would try to make ethnic Barbies more “authentic.” Trying to agree on one ideal form for a racial or ethnic group is no more freeing than trying to get everyone to accord to one ideal based in whiteness. DuCille writes:
…it reifies race. You can’t make an ‘authentic’ Black, Hispanic, Asian, or white doll. You just can’t. It will always be artificially constraining…
And also:
Just what are we saying when we claim that a doll does or does not look… black? How does black look? …What would make a doll look authentically African American or realistically Nigerian or Jamaican? What prescriptive ideals of blackness are inscribed in such claims of authenticity? …The fact that skin color and other ‘ethnic features’ …are used by toymakers to denote blackness raises critical questions about how we manufacture difference.
Indeed, difference is, literally, manufactured through the production of “ethnic” Barbies and this is done, largely, for a white audience.
To be profitable, racial and cultural diversity… must be reducible to such common, reproducible denominators as color and costume.
The majority of American Barbie buyers are only interested in “ethnicity” so long as it is made into cute and harmless variety. This reminds us that, when toy makers (and others) manufacture difference, they are doing so for money. DuCille writes:
…capitalism has appropriated what it sees as certain signifiers of blackness and made them marketable… Mattel… mass market[s] the discursively familiar–by reproducing stereotyped forms and visible signs of racial and ethnic difference.
Consider:
Black Barbie and Hispanic Barbie, 1980
Oriental Barbie, date unknown
Diwali Barbie (India)
Hula Honey Barbie
Kwanzaa Barbie
Radiant Rose Ethnic Barbie, 1996
There are many reasons to find this problematic. DuCille turns to the Jamaican Barbie as an example.
The back of Jamaican Barbie’s box tells us:
How-you-du (Hello) from the land of Jamaica, a tropical paradise known for its exotic fruit, sugar cane, breath-taking beaches, and reggae beat! …most Jamaicans have ancestors from Africa, so even though our official language is English, we speak patois, a kind of ‘Jamaica Talk,’ filled with English and African words. For example, when I’m filled with boonoonoonoos, I’m filled with much happiness!
Notice how Jamaica is reduced to cutesy things like exotic fruit and sugar cane and Jamaican people are characterized as happy-go-lucky and barely literate while the history of colonialism is completely erased.
So DuCille doesn’t like it when Black Barbies, for example, look like White Barbies and she doesn’t like it when Black Barbies look like Black Barbies either. What’s the solution? The solution simply may not lie in representation, so much as in actually correcting the injustice in which representation occurs.
(Images found here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
Editor’s note: I actually think I understand both sides of Ducille’s argument. The Barbie’s offered in the examples are of two extremes: Half are dolls with Euro features dipped in brown and half are “othered” in “native” costume. The message seems to be: People of color can be Americanized (read nearly white) or foreign. Where is, say, the Korean-American or African-American or Mexican-American Barbie with identifiably “ethnic” features wearing jeans and a t-shirt (festooned with pink sparklies–cause it’s Barbie)? THAT Barbie would be a better representation of American women of color. Closest to this ideal seems to be Kira, the Asian Barbie pictured above. But Kwanzaa Barbie? Really?
Of course, do little girls WANT Barbies’that look like them? (See doll test) That’s an even bigger rub.
I have to say, I avoid giving little girls Barbies for many reasons besides the way Mattel portrays race. I haven’t spent much time recently evaluating those toys. So, I may be complaining about a problem that no longer exists. Readers?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Marian wrote:
Do the dolls “with Euro features” really represent real “Euro” girls? I’ve not met a one of ‘em with a size 0 waist, DD bosom, long slender legs, tiny pixie nose, huge sparkling blue eyes, perfectly sculpted dainty cheekbones, long, luxurious, flowing hair and regular opportunity to wear ball gowns. Let’s face it: Barbie is NOT about representing anyone’s real life.
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 8:35 am ¶
jen* wrote:
Barbie is NOT about representing anyone’s real life
This - more than any ethnicity arguments - is why my parents never bought my sister and I Barbie dolls. [Although cost probably also played a factor.] We had dolls, but they were mostly cloth, and looked like children. We had black dolls and white dolls, and that was it. [I don’t think much else was available] But my parents are feminists, and just couldn’t get behind us having Barbies in the house.
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 10:47 am ¶
Sarah wrote:
I have to agree with Marian.
I just ordered some Only Hearts Club girls as alternative to Barbies for my kids. I’m not sure if the link will work here, but I’ll try:
http://www.onlyheartsclub.com/pages/meet.html
I don’t know if they handle the stereotypes much better (the Asian-American doll is the only one listed as “shy” and “quiet” ), but at least their have normal clothes and bodytypes for young girls. It’s a start.
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 11:27 am ¶
Janine deManda wrote:
Just yesterday, my four year old daughter asked me for a “barbie toy” and was very upset with me when I said they were too old for her. We haven’t decided to ban them entirely because a} they are so endemic that she’ll encounter them anyway and may come to fetishize them because they are “forbidden” and b} when I was a kid, my best friend an I wrote stories, designed sets, made costumes and more as part of our barbie play in ways that were specifically possible because they were adult-shaped dolls, and I don’t want to exclude that possibility. Still, I think it can wait a few years and will involve efforts to convey critiques, et cetera. I’m more for critical engagement than absolute avoidance, but as I did yesterday, I so often feel at a loss as to how to encourage age-appropriate critical thinking. My ma was so much better at this, I swear!
Anyway, here’s another link for doll alternatives:
http://www.dollslikeme.com
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 2:16 pm ¶
CJsDaddy wrote:
@Sarah - thanks for the link - my wife and I have been searching for at least half way decent dolls for a while now. The Asian-American one love figure skating and gymnastics, the Hispanic American doll one loves to cook, and an African American dolls is into sports. Meanwhile, the Caucasian dolls are love horses, the outdoors, and animals. All at least mild stereo types - but like you said, they seem to look good.
What I’d really like to find are dolls made by people from the same ethnic background they are portraying.
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 2:54 pm ¶
S's mom wrote:
I think the only hearts club is worse than the barbies! I don’t want somebody telling me the personality of the doll. I would want my child to imagine whatever personality he or she wanted.
And where are the boy dolls?
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 4:13 pm ¶
Jody wrote:
Oh good! Yet another reason to hate Barbies… I’ve always disliked them for feminine reasons (or, as my daughter now says, ‘they’re not real women’), but this adds more fodder to the fire! Thanks!
Anybody have thoughts on American Girl dolls and the issue of race? My husband and I have also been uncomfortable with how AG represents the different races… I’d love to hear some other perspectives.
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 9:14 pm ¶
Lisa wrote:
I agree with everyone’s sentiments. As a white mom of a black daughter (who just turned one), I am concerned about the toys she’ll want (and play with at friends’ houses). I played with Barbies when I was very young. However, as an adult, I see the problems with the doll. And I do wonder what effect Barbies had on my own perception of self — and perception of my body — growing up. I obviously don’t want my daughter growing up thinking she has to have a flat butt and huge chest, straight hair and a toy nose. Everything that’s remotely black is just awful — Bratz?! Ugggh! Dolls Like Me is a great place that many adoptive parents (I’m one) head to. But most folks don’t buy their toys there — they get them at Toys R Us or Target. Even just walking around those stores, you’re hit with all kinds of stereotypes on race and gender. It’s pretty horrific if you think about it. I just tell my little girl every day how smart and beautiful she is (because she is). How do we “protect” our daughters (and sons, though for different reasons) from this? (Protect is in quotes because I know we can’t really protect them… it’s just the best word I could come up with.)
Posted 29 Oct 2008 at 11:16 pm ¶
Deborah wrote:
Similar to Marian, I find that Barbies don’t reflect an accurate depiction of women, regardless of ethnicity. I agree that by endorsing these dolls we are teaching our young girls (and maybe boys, too) that they will never be “good enough” since Barbie is an essence “perfect”. I have yet to figure out how to really tackle this problem (my daughter does not any Barbies) because I think it exists all over the media. We are constantly bombarded with images of what someone decided was beautiful and anything else pales in comparison. I even heard a woman in her late 40’s say that she didn’t enjoy the movie Something’s Gotta Give because she didn’t want to watch middle aged people fall in love - how can you walk out of a movie feeling good about yourself after watching that. My question is who can you walk out of a movie feeling good about yourself after watching people that are not the norm? But this is a pervasive problem all around.
Posted 30 Oct 2008 at 10:09 am ¶
Gloria wrote:
CJs Daddy - I agree with you - having dolls made by people from within the ethnic group they are representing is probably a better way to get away from harmful stereotypes (except, of course, those that are internalized). On dollslikeme.com, the Niya doll is made by an African-American woman and made to look similar to her daughter. I saw it on American Inventor, and now her doll has actually made it to the market. That’s the only example I know of for sure.
Posted 30 Oct 2008 at 12:49 pm ¶
E.B. wrote:
I’m grappling with what role these dolls play in the problem. By the time children want to play with Barbies and dolls they’ve already internalized the white beauty standard, so will they even want a more ethnically accurate representation, whatever that might be? I have a friend whose eight year old was doing some sort of make your own doll thing, and this child is of multigenerational mixed black heritage with brown skin and curly hair, but she didn’t want to make a doll with curly hair because that’s not pretty to her. She already believes that long straight hair is the ideal. I saw a forum discussing racial issues in which the wife of a celebrity just couldn’t seem to understand why her black daughters didn’t like their hair as she herself sat on the stage with pounds of straight weave on her head. This problem is so deep and difficult, I don’t even like having my son with me in the grocery store line (he’s not quite two) because he’ll see all the images on the magazine covers. So where in the media would he, as a racially mixed black child, ever see images of people who look like him in their natural state (or any woman really, but as a family of color this is my specific concern).
Some of the material on the dolls like me site look pretty interesting, I think we’ll have to check them out.
Another issue I have is that particularly with multracial children it seems pretty unlikely they’ll see themselves represented in dolls, books, etc.
Posted 30 Oct 2008 at 1:42 pm ¶
BeautifulFriendships wrote:
I am reading this and finding myself wondering if this is an issue of the chicken and the egg. Is Barbie perpetuating the problem, or is she just a symptom of a larger problem (although either way she clearly isn’t helping the problem)? After all, when I was in high school and college, perms were all the rage - everyone with straight hair wanted curls. Now people with curls want their hair straight. No matter what color hair we have, we make it different. I wonder if the problem is that we have put so much emphasis on appearance in general that no matter what we look like, we have this idea that beauty is an outside in kind of thing?
I also wonder - where’s the talk about Ken in all this? I don’t know too many men who have perfect hair, a pearly white smile and a sculpted six pack. We have rock star Ken and Fashion Fever Ken - how about a Soulful Poet Ken or a Nuclear Physicist Ken - of any ethnicity?
Posted 31 Oct 2008 at 6:44 am ¶
Spring wrote:
I have 3 daughters of 3 different ethnicities…Ken is not an issue in our house because my daughters always break off his head or arms and never play with him again. This never happens with their female dolls. Don’t know why and I certainly don’t encourage it, but I do interpret it as a secret victory!
On a more serious note, I don’t know if the mainstream Barbie discussion is pertinent anymore…and if it still is, it won’t be soon. There are SO many other places to buy realistic looking dolls that convey the subtleties of features not available in Barbies. At chinasprout.com, they sell a variety of both Barbie and baby dolls that show a range of possible Asian features. I also have an Ethiopian daughter who rejects anything but dolls that look “Habesha”, meaning Ethiopian: cinnamon skin, long forehead, etc and I have been able to find a number of dolls that pass muster with her.
The internet, I believe, may be the great equalizer in this issue, for those who are willing to search (and those who can afford to pay, as always).
Posted 31 Oct 2008 at 11:25 am ¶
happybell wrote:
Growing up there weren’t “ethnic” dolls where I live, they are still scarce here.
I always thought Barbies were supposed to be blond, thin, little button nose,etc, because that were the only ones that were sold here. I wasn’t aware that they made other kind of Barbies until my uncle brought me a Kira from the USA. And wow!! I LOVED that Baribie, she was -and still is- my most precious one. It was the only doll I had that looked similar to me. And yes, all my friends envied me, because noone had Barbies with black hair.
As for male dolls, I had a boy doll with brown hair and curls; which was also covetted because there weren’t many boy dolls around. There was only one Kevin in the house (the young version of Ken), the rest of the male ” Barbies” were brunettes.
It does bother me the scarcity of “ethnic” dolls around here. Last Christmas one store was selling “black” baby dolls, which for me was amazing as it was the first time ever I saw one selling at a large chain store (sort of like Target). I bought for one of my nieces, and she loves it.
Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 7:46 am ¶
Elise wrote:
I understand the diversity arguements, but I just don’t get the general Barbie hatred. I still have my Barbies and all of the outfits my mom made for them and have amazing memories of them. Hopefully I will one day have a child who loves them as much as I do.
Toys are not to be fetishized, they are tools for use in imaginative play. My Barbies were paramedics, nurses, teachers, detectives, moms, neurosugeons and scientists because those are the things I was into. Barbies do not look like real people, nor should they have to, they are blank mannequins waiting for personalities and histories to be assigned by their tiny human overlords.
Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 4:50 pm ¶
Kyra wrote:
My own feelings about Black Barbie are expressed in a quilt I made several years ago. I appliqued on the quilt “Barbie America’s Doll … was never intended for me.” This quilt is on exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum in an exhibit about African American identity in art. You can see it in this YouTube video featuring the exhibit curator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT7fpj12BZw
Best, Kyra
Posted 23 Nov 2008 at 8:21 pm ¶
Marissa wrote:
wow. you have too much time on your hands. barbie is a toy. it is a use of entertainment. it would be impossible if a barbie was created to look like every person out there. everyone is different. completely different. two white people never look alike. two african people never look alike. two asian people never look alike. the point is that every ethnicity is being recognized. just because detail was not put into each and evey doll does not mean it is preferably white.
Posted 30 Nov 2008 at 12:37 am ¶
Anaya Smothers wrote:
This commentary by K. Danielle Edwards was published on The Root about this very same issue. Worthwile reading! Not sure I agree with it all, but provoking anyway.
http://www.theroot.com/id/49190
Posted 22 Dec 2008 at 2:36 pm ¶