January 28 1998

INDOCTRINATED

CHRISTIN

CATHY TAM A HOLTZ

Stealing from Aqua since 1976

Ber A

CHINESE CANADIAN PONDERS WHAT Ve MEANS “TOBE

BEAUTIFUL IN OUR CULTURE, AND FINDS SHE FALLS SHORT

have always disliked pink and as a child I

watched more G.J. Joe than My Little Pony. So it was only natural for me to skip the whole Barbie thing.

I never owned a Barbie nor ever wished to. Yet, because I watched a lot of Smurfs and Care Bears | inevitably sat through countless commercials hawking the latest Barbie.

Through the weekly ritual of Saturday morning cartoons, it was my distinct misfortune to have had Barbie imprinted on my brain as the epitome of feminine beauty in much the same manner as Pavlov’s dog. Over and over again the little girls would brush their Barbie’s hair just so,

styling it just the right way, adjust the

~ PHOTOS doll’s already immaculate clothing, and then step back to admire their handiwork, announcing in sugary tones bursting with giggles, “Oh how pretty she looks!”

How pretty, indeed. Barbie, with her long blonde hair, big blue eyes with impossibly long eyelashes, svelte body in daunting proportions, long legs and incredibly arched feet has long been a North American pop culture icon. So it was that a child with black hair and brown eyes—growing up at a time when crayola still made “flesh coloured” crayons—came to long for wavy blonde hair and blue eyes.

Being a bookworm didnt stop the barrage of

images on TV. After reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, I took to watching Little House on the Prairie. Even little Laura envied Mary for her blonde hair and blue eyes, and they were sisters.

Quite frankly, growing up Chinese in western society has given me a peculiar set of mix-and- match values. And the Barbie factor doesn't help things. I stand 155 cm tall (for the metrically challenged, that’s 5’2)—not short by any means, just not tall. Compare my legs to Barbie’s one-sixth scale ones and mine are positively stumps. Not to mention that my hips are too wide by far. It’s a good thing I have small feet, but I could never wear the killer heels that Barbie prefers. I teeter precari-

ously on 2-inch heels, and if I actually were to

wear anything longer I would probably fall and break a leg.

Surely it must be every little girl’s dream to grow up and have a boyfriend like Ken. Tall, dark and handsome, and he goes everywhere with you when you want him to. He also doesn’t mind being the only guy in your bevy of friends and he never objects to you dressing him in clothes that you like. He is never boorish and doesn’t spend the whole afternoon in front of the TV with his friends, acting like pigs. All in all, Ken’s pretty great. Alas, poor-me doesn’t have a boyfriend like that. In fact, I don’t have any boyfriend at all. Guess that makes me a failure, right?

Over the years, Barbie has been a doctor, top- level executive, astronaut, scientist, surfer-babe and

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all-around happy teenager. As I’ve never had any serious aspirations to be a doctor, nor astronaut, nor scientist, nor surfer-girl, that deems me as a failure yet again, by the Barbie factor.

I have failed in yet another way, according to the standards of Barbie. I hate to buy things if they are not books. The blatant consumerism encouraged by Babs and her ilk never really made any sense to me. You would have to be crazy not to want a car of your own. Barbie has one. Then again, a pink sports car is a little much. Exactly how many outfits with matching accessories does she have in that pink dream home of hers, anyway?

And speaking of buying things, have you looked at the price of Barbie lately? Sky-high prices for a piece of moulded plastic. Never did I see a Barbie advertised on TV that wasn’t the classic Barbie. I didn’t know that there was an Asian Barbie for sale until I started researching this article. Browsing the toy department at Eaton’s, I found one solitary Japanese Barbie. True, the cast of its features were not that of the Western Barbie, but dressed in a kimono, the doll is removed from the everyday and therefore a novelty; an aberration from the norm.

What exactly is Barbie trying to say to little girls of Western extraction? Get breast implants, go anorexic, bleach your hair, buy tinted contacts because only perfect people have any fun.

Come on Barbie, let’s go party. @

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