Barbie dolls represent the contemporary Western ideal of beauty and body aesthetics. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, accept it or not the societal pressure for females to conform to an external standard of beauty starts at a very young age with indoctrination through play. Regardless of class or ethnicity, whether consciously or not, the Barbie aesthetic stands for all they can and should be physically. A young woman’s physicality can become an obsession but the sad and obvious reality is that “if [Barbie] were human, “she would be a 5-foot 9-inch woman with an 18-inch waist, 36-inch breasts, and 33-inch hips, and she would weigh 110 pounds. That’s too skinny to menstruate [and] she may even be too skinny to stand upright.” (1) That means that the hopes and dreams many of have to achieve the ideal form of beauty is quite literally unattainable. 

The “New Barbie” is a caricature of the ‘real’ Barbie and popular cultures’ adoration of the inaccessible qualities of her body and beauty. She encapsulates all the hopes and dreams of becoming the ideal form of physical beauty. She wants to “Make it Pretty” as the pin on her bag says. She does that by doing what every ideal beauty does. She exists and of course, she cleans. Isn’t that what every man wants? 

(1) http://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/kmarume/ideal%20physical%20beauty.htm (2) Durham, M. Gigi. Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It. Chapter 3: The Second Myth: The Anatomy of A Sex Goddess. Penguin Group (USA), 2008.