Beauty Standards: Barbies vs Bunnies
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 10:07.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 10:07.
Comment on original post or Return to the homepage.
Looking at this & realizing the impact it has on young girls makes me want to gag!
Yes, I look just like Barbie because I played with the dolls when I was growing up. I remember seeing Barbie as a TOY, not a role model. My role models were actual humans. Barbie was just a fun to dress her up in clothes I’d never wear (or want to) and to get crazy with her hair. There’s nothing gag-worthy about Barbie, and the fact that she’s stood the test of time, probably means she isn’t going anywhere fast.
@J.R. THANK YOU! Barbie was just fun to me, not a role model, as well. My sister and I used to have the most fun just setting up her house and scenes.
I mangled my Barbies to look like my role model. My mother. The bubble cut one in the Silken Flame especially. When I played with her in that outfit, I WAS my mother (who had a very similar outfit complete with pillbox hat). Is that normal or sick?
I pulled the heads off of mine, so I don’t think you really have to worry about being the only one to do weird things to yours.
I had a Malibu Barbie when I was little and never wanted to be on the cover of Playboy. I think this is stretching things a little far. And I never became anorexic because I compared my figure with a stupid toy. A toy is a toy not a role model.
I couldn’t agree more. I saw little to no resemblance between the dolls and the Playboy girls, and people don’t seem to be able to keep their feet in reality.
The makeup is going to correlate with general fashion trends, be it Vogue or Playboy. Thanks for creating another blown-out-of-proportion “issue” so the women that like to blame their lack of self-confidence on a TOY can whine and cry again.
I agree with you. Barbie, like playboy, will follow the fashion trends of the year. I highly doubt barbie people care about playboy trends, otherwise Barbie would have much bigger breasts…
That made me laugh =) And I completely agree. Barbies were fun to play with. I loved my Esmerelda doll. I kept her until her arm fell off and she basically fell apart. I didn’t even consider any possible negative ramifications of a doll with those proportions until I got older. And I still love Barbies. I don’t want to look like one. I just liked to play with dolls.
I think Claire Sinclair is one of Hef’s son’s girlfriends. I may be wrong. She does look like Tokidoki barbie though.
I DON’T think this is trying to create some kind of controversy. I thought it was just an interesting chronology of how ideals of beauty change in fashions over time. Of course the changing aesthetics would be reflected in both popular toys and popular sex idols, because that’s just fashion
. Very interesting comparison! I like how darker skin and hair gets more common over time.
I’m the first one to cry foul at sexist marketing campaigns and other negative ideologies that are pushed on to children these days, but this is quite frankly ridiculous. They had to go back over 50 years just to find 10 pairs that came even remotely close.
No, they chose to start with the first Barbie doll and then each best match afterwards.
Ridiculous. This poster is really stretching it. As others have said, they had to go back 50 years to find some similar pairs (even though I don’t really see the similiarity!). Barbie’s and the playgirl’s makeup and hairdos are going to follow the general trend of the time. Do you really think Barbie designers are going to copy Playboy bunnies? Come on! This is a really, really stupid poster that only attempts to start controversy.
The hair and make-up might be a trend thing, but if you look at just the noses of the barbies compared to the models, they’re strikingly similar.
Interesting but I don’t see the resemblance in a lot of them other than the hair & makeup & of course Barbie is gonna resemble current hair & makeup trends as would the Playmates. I’m more confused by the Barbie names, Zodiac Barbie? Free Moving Barbie? Tokidoki Barbie, really, WTF is THAT?!?
tokidoki is an italian brand inspired by japanese street fashion. i get that one.
but some of the other names, uh, yeah, wtf??? i’m equally confused.
“Zodiac Barbie”, as in “A Barbie for Each Zodiac Sign.” “Free Moving Barbie”, as in “The Fact That Barbies are Relatively Poseable was an Innovation, and Barbie’s Makers Were Understandably Proud of it and Marketed this Doll as Such.”
I didn’t think they were hard to figure out.
Ridiculous! I mean, come on! They’re not going to have a Barbie in the 80′s that looks like some chick from the 30′s. The hair and make-up only reflects the fashion of the times! For both Barbie AND Playboy. This is stupid.
Side note, Free Moving Barbie is my favourite from this list.
It’s interesting to see how Barbie’s face has changed throughout the decades.
None of the women above resemble any of the Barbies.
I remember playing with barbie and I got a new one every year for my birthday. That’s how much I loved her. They change babrie to go with the demand. If they see girls dressing a certain way or infactuated a certain way, the manufacturers are going to see that and mold barbie that way to make more money. The generation today looks way older than what they really are so they’re going to make barbie to fit the new generation. It’s what’s in and it’s what the new generation wants. It’s all about making money not keeping the older generation happy. Money is a priority to the company.
for those who dont see the resemblance its the nose… and facial shap in general that are the same (or as close as possible)
It’s not the nose. The nose is identical in each doll. The angle at which it is shot is slightly different.
If you want to stop kids being exposed to things which are deemed “too old” for them, then maybe companies should think about not manufacturing Playboy branded clothes in sizes to fit 3 year olds, and parents should think before buying things like that for their children! Barbie doesn’t harm children or give them impossible ideals, except for a select few. But if society is going to look disapprovingly on every single thing which ever gave someone a bad idea, then nothing is safe. Hell, Catcher In The Rye made Mark Chapman kill John Lennon, and that’s still in print!
They look the same in the sense that they are both girls… every single year Barbie has light hair, ligth skin and blue eyes. after the first 3 i see no resemblance.
the one in the 80′s seems to have frizzy hair, like the bunny, but that was the style at the time. Call me back when there is better evidence. :\
The question that really needs to be answered is: Why won’t 1959 and 1967 Barbie look you in the eye?
Barbies of the ’50′s and ’60s won’t look you in the eye because women are meant to be coy, passive, and playful, not direct, straightforward, or powerful.
@ Les and Awhiffs and others who think this is stupid….this isn’t proposing some huge playboy-barbie conspiracy, but it shows how pop culture’s idea of beauty and gender imagery not only change over time, but how they filter all the way down to even the youngest girls. From the time we’re born, we can’t avoid patriarchal stereotypes and pressures! I’d much rather have my little girl play with blocks and legos and stuffed animals than brush Barbie’s hair. NO ONE can deny that overbearing pressure from media and pop culture (Barbie and Playboy being 2 of many many negative sources of pressure) create extreme and un-achievable ideals for girls and women, resulting in higher and higher rates of eating disorders, depression, insecurity, and anxiety. The NY Times did an article a few months back on the high incidence of eating disorders in FIFTH GRADE GIRLS, as in, 10 year olds! Obviously, these girls are not reading playboy but they ARE playing with BARBIES.
’67 Barbie has derpy eyes! The only similarities I see are that both Barbie and Playboy try to reflect each generation’s idea of beauty. Barbie and Playboy don’t dictate beauty, they follow it independently of each other.
IMAGE SEARCH ALL THE BARBIES!!!
While I agree that most children aren’t directly influenced by this Barbie looking like a famous nude model, the fact that a CHILDRENS’ TOY seems highly influenced by an ADULT STAR is questionable, at best. It really says something about our society.
Of course theyre going to be similar. Both are major companies with marketing departments that follow fashion trends to remain competitive and make money. Just because that look is in for a certain period in time does not form a connection between two companies in vastly different markets. In fact, I’m rather certain that you could match all of those barbie faces to same year transvestite faces, celebrity faces, politician/or their wives faces, and to any pictures of your female family members dating from each year. Really people. Think.
i think the media’s role on eating disorders is overly emphasized. i’m sure it DOES affect some people — i’m not denying that … but i don’t think it affects most who are eating disordered as much as people without eating disorders think it does. that, and there are many who are not at ALL affected by the media.
i began very noticeably exerting control over my food intake at two (yes, two) years old. it didn’t become about my WEIGHT until i was about 13, though, but the SYMPTOMS were there. i used overexercising and deciding what did and didn’t go into my body as a way to calm the chaos i felt was around me — THAT is what eating disorders really are. almost all people with them DO focus on weight and body, but not ALWAYS … throughout my rounds of treatment i have met a handful of girls (i say girls only because i have only been in female-only treatment centers) who don’t even weigh themselves, because they know it’ll never be good enough so it doesn’t even matter. i’ve also known a couple of girls who used the control aspect but were SCARED of how low their weight had gotten/was getting. i do weigh myself, and i do always want to lose weight, but the media has nothing to do with it. at all. i don’t give a rat’s arse what celebrities or anyone else looks like, and i can admit that a healthy body LOOKS much better than an anorexic one. i just don’t want a healthy body, though.
It’s so sad when little girls can’t even play with dolls anymore because their parents fear the comments of others
1967 has some serious eye issues. They are both in it for themselves.
And, seriously. Oh stfu. It is fashion trends.
The 1992 Bunny looks like Bellatrix Lestrange. O_o
I spent my childhood running around with my lightsaber and I turned out much better.
Considering the Barbies look like the Playboy Playmate of THAT year, it’s not influencing young girls, but nudie models!! Or the nudie models are influencing Barbie. LOL
I have to say WOW you guys are getting REALLY defensive about your Barbies. I chewed the feet off of one of my Barbies and used to play with the others having Barbie being a spy or a street person. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least of a popular model, be they a Bunny or not inspired the guys doing the face-pieces. Barbie was always supposed to be beautiful and glamourous – and picking a model that the designer things follows those things only makes sense.
Considering the original Barbie was based off of a sex-toy, it really doesn’t surprise me that sexy models would be a further inspiration for her.
But did that make me want to be a Bunny? No. How in the heck would I have ever known, as a 5 year old, that the pretty face of my Barbie was based on some chick showing off her lady parts? With no connection for the kids playing with them, it’s just an amusing coincidence at best. You can’t be offended by what didn’t effect us!
I personally preferred other toys because Barbies were horrible to dress up, and really, I much preferred toys with some character (ie – something I’d seen in a cartoon – so I knew what they were like!)