Pink and empty

Students:  Roxana B. and Melina A.

Who is the only girl in the world who has dolphins in her Miami mansion? We can find her every day on the TV moulding children’s appreciation of reality through fashion and glamour. A girl whose only worry is shopping and looking pretty is present in almost every field of children’s life, which is more; nearly every girl has a Barbie product.

Nowadays, television is a socialising element which constructs reality and transmits values and stereotypes. In many cases, the stupid box replaces parent’s image and kids adopt TV shows attitudes instead of their parents’. In a completely flooded pink screen, Barbie transmits female, social class and body stereotypes.

Stereotypes are difficult to obliterate when we acquired them during childhood. Imagine what a little girl internalizes as regards physical appearance when watching Barbie life in the Dreamhouse. Barbie is a skinny girl who represents the ideal body which should be desirable to achieve. In her TV show, women are represented with an image that is unachievable without this entailing health, psychological or self-esteem problems. Notice that not only the main character but all of them have a body that does not resemble reality: excessively slim bodies. Barbie depicts a white, blue-eyed girl with blonde straight hair that is successful just because of looking this way.

Superficiality is always present in Barbie’s TV show. In her world, the ideal woman is focused on fashion and appearance. With her obsession about beauty, Barbie represents a horrible stereotype of the traditional female role. She is excessively feminine and her only interests are related to fashion, shopping, and an obsession for beauty. That is why little girls may internalize this concept and grow up believing that this is the way a perfect woman should act.

This stereotype not only represents a problem on girl’s minds but also on the eyes of the boys towards women. The appreciation young men would have about girls is that of a stupid, empty and shallow woman to be but, still they would like them. This imposition might generate a rejection of a completely different kind of woman who does not care about appearance as much as Barbie does.

Barbie lives in a luxurious mansion in Miami, where she organizes parties with her friends who are as rich and pompous as her. You will never see Barbie or her partners working, but you’ll always notice that they are buying clothes in the shopping malls. In her dressing room, which is the same size as any other mortal’s house, Barbie has an uncountable number of dresses and shoes. And guess what colour they are... Yes, you’re right. They are pink! In her TV show this colour represents another stereotype of womanhood and sensitivity.

This non-working high class is the only present in Barbie in the Dreamhouse TV show. It seems that there’s no other social class in her world, or at least she is not aware of that.

In this globalized world in which parents spend more time working than being with their kids, television may act as a babysitter and create stereotypes that will affect our children’s perception of perfection. Definitely, the imposition of a stereotype is something that harms society not only by fixing wrong models of beauty in the unconscious of our future adults, but also generating a lack of awareness of different social classes.  Moreover, all these events are surrounded by a frivolous environment which fosters a reality that is quite distant from the majority of children’s life. Most of the times it is better turning off the TV and opening a book.