When I was a kid, Barbie was the coolest. She had the dream house and a pink corvette. She was a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, an astronaut… plus she had her hottie husband Ken, and a few great girlfriends. What little girl didn’t want to be Barbie?!
Of course, I missed out on the S&M Barbie:
The doll’s image is transformed with kinky fishnets, motorcycle jacket, black gloves and boots.
Makers Mattel say Black Canary Barbie, out in September, is based on a DC comic superhero of the same name.
But religious group Christian Voice said: “Barbie has always been on the tarty side and this is taking it too far.
A children’s doll in sexually suggestive clothing is irresponsible – it’s filth.”
Black Canary Barbie? Let’s be realistic here. Little six-year-old Susie isn’t going to have any clue who in the hell the Black Canary is (I do, but I’m a geek). This Barbie looks like some fetishized Dominatrix Barbie, complete with fishnets, boots, and leather. Here’s the Barbie:
No girl is going to look at that and think, “SWEET, ass-kicking DC-comics superheroine!”. They’ll probably still want it, and get it, but come on. How is this appropriate for little girls? I guess in the Bratz era, where girls are sexualized from the moment they’re able to smile, this is just fine and dandy, but not for me. There’s no way in hell I’d buy this for my daughter.
I kind of wonder if this is Mattel’s way of keeping up with the Bratz empire. The Bratz dolls are dressed like this on a regular basis, except even trashier, so maybe Mattel thought they needed to vamp Barbie up in order to compete. Screw Barbie the astronaut. Why encourage girls to be astronauts when they can be vapid S&M streetwalkers?
My worry is what will happen to these oversexualized little girls when they get older. What kind of issues are they going to have? How will this affect them as adolescents, teenagers, and adults? How will this affect their relationships and their adult sexuality? Although, I guess we’re already seeing the results. When we see half of all STD infections getting contracted by kids younger than 24, and kids wanting to be pregnant in high school, you’d think parents would understand. But nooo. They keep on slutting their four-year-olds up, and now we’ve got a slutty S&M Barbie they’ll buy for their kiddos. And the fault lies with the parents. Plain and simple.
So, what will happen with the S&M Barbie Black Canary Barbie? Will it die a slow death on the shelves with parents actually using common sense for once? Or will it be a huge seller like the skankalicious Bratz dolls? I guess only time will tell.
