Last week one of our Culture Clips blasted Barbie for her not-so-natural shape and the way that shape might influence young girls’ perception of their own bodies. Read this before I go on:
Trying to counter what it calls “an epidemic of body hatred,” rehabs.com is currently showing its users how impossible it would be to look like a Barbie doll, even with an eating disorder. According to the section of its site called Dying to Be Barbie, the ubiquitous doll is a physiological impossibility: Her neck’s too thin to hold her head up. Her feet would force her to walk on all fours. Her waist is so thin that she’d only have room for half her liver and a “few inches of intestine.”
This week it’s Candy Land under the microscope. Yes, that most innocuous of children’s games we have all played, Candy Land.
The classic board game Candy Land has gotten another makeover, and some aren’t thrilled with the results this time around. Why? Because board stars Queen Frostine and Princess Lolly look distinctly more slinky than previous incarnations. “Candy Land isn’t the only classic that has, without our notice, gotten a hot makeover. (And I’m not the only one who finds this evolution alarming.),” writes Peggy Orenstein in The Atlantic. “The Disney Princesses have grown gradually more skinny and coy over time. And, check out Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Trolls (now called ‘Trollz’). Even Care Bears and My Little Pony have been put on a diet. When our kids play with toys that we played with, we assume that they are the same as they were when we were younger. But they aren’t. Not at all. Our girls (and our boys) are now bombarded from the get-go with images of women whose bodies range from unattainable to implausible (Disney Princesses, anyone?).”
What’s next? Chutes and Ladders? Hi Ho! Cherry-O?
Now, I don’t actually disagree with any of the criticisms leveled against these kinds of toys and games. I really am not a big fan of sexualizing in any way the feminine forms that appear on merchandize targeting tots. But I’m also starting to get an inkling that collectively we’ve given up the fight against such things.
And by giving up the fight I mean we’re complaining more about everything.
How can this be? Isn’t the idea of complaining about things at the very core of fighting against them in our modern commercial marketplace? No. Not really. That would be not buying them. And we’re all still buying this stuff in droves. So I’m starting to think that we’re all talking out of both sides of our mouths. Or, more aptly, talking out of one side of our mouths while shoveling cash out of the other side of our wallets. Surrounding ourselves with complaining just makes us feel better about the spending somehow.
Lamenting the sorry state of our culture has indeed become almost a national pastime. From the criticisms that fly about the gross availability of guns in the aftermath of a tragedy, all the way to us here at Plugged In harping about how bad Hollywood has gotten lately.
Now, since I either write or edit most of Plugged In’s harping, you can probably guess that I’m not actively advocating an end to all public discourse revolving around dissatisfaction over our culture and the products it creates. But I do think we need to be careful not to slip into the trap of letting the waves of retorts around us slowly become background noise.
There are things we can do about Barbie. There are things we can do about Candy Land. There are things we can do about R-rated movies. We can make discerning decisions about how and when and whether those things come into our homes. Into our hearts.
I know sometimes it seems inadequate to “merely” focus on ourselves. Lame, even. I feel that, acutely at times. Nothing’s going to change if I’m the only one who refuses to go see Pain & Gain. HBO won’t cancel Game of Thrones just because I get rid of my satellite service. Mattel certainly won’t stop its production of Barbie the second they hear about how I kicked ours to the curb.
But the same sorts of things can be said about voting. And feeding the poor. And spreading Christ’s Gospel.
So don’t let the dull roar around you deaden your senses. Don’t let complaints (our complaints, my complaints) about entertainment make you feel like something is already being done—and so you don’t have to do quite as much yourself.
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