A dead relative perhaps?

So, seems Barbie bashing isn't an *entirely* new sport. One of my dah-link compadres sent this to me--I'm told it was written in the fifties.

It's....well....gothalicious!

Barbie Doll
by Marge Piercy

This girl child was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle,
Her good nature wore out like a fan belt.

So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
__

May love always rule in your life,

Liane

Barbie takes another victim

A writer should never begin a story to try to drive home a message. It doesn't work.

What's really frightening, though, is when something you wrote begins to feel prescient.

One of my characters in my book, Trudy, says something to the protagonist, Katya, which sums up today's (painful) post. "When did my choice to get pretty become a crime?"

In the context of the story, Trudy was right. Pretty is not a crime. Nor is the desire to become "all that we can be". The real crime is committed when attractive young women are encouraged by the people who love them in their quests toward an artificial standard of beauty.

I can't get my husband's best friend Pete* off my mind today--Pete, and his youngest daughter, Anna*.

Pete is a great Dad. Often, when I think of him, I begin to hum the song "Daddy's little girl". He's one of the dying breed of father who has erected his world around his love for his family. There is no boundary that Pete won't overcome to provide for his daughter's happiness.

So before you read further, understand, Pete wears his love for his daughter openly and without reservation. That loves defines him. He loves Anna as she came to him, and as far as I know, Pete has never encouraged her to become more than she is.

Like most young girls of her generation, Anna still yearned for *more*. Her Korean-American genes did not equip her with the DNA for large breasts. Pete's little girl found her flat chest ugly. She wanted to feel sexier. Prettier.

Anna already was. Pretty. Stunning, in fact.

Pete did not hesitate to help his little girl meet her dreams by funding her breast augmentation. He wanted to help his child to feel secure, happy, beautiful.

Yesterday, at the age of 19, Anna's dream of fuller breasts came to fruition...

This morning, Pete's little girl--the apple of his eye--lies in an ICU in a coma, while the tubes that keep her tied to this world protrude from every available orifice. Meanwhile her organ systems are systematically shutting down due to an adverse reaction to anesthesia. Anna's frail, beautiful body is in a race against time. Against death.

In spite of coming into this world looking like the proverbial china doll, petite and golden skinned with gleaming masses of black hair, Anna still felt she didn't measure up to the artificial standard which America uses to define beauty.

Anna was not a Barbie.

If you have a daughter, a wife, a friend, a woman who is considering plastic surgery, love her enough to drag her to stand in front of you right now. Tell her how beautiful she is. Then force her to look you in the eyes as you tell her that in this media saturated age of Photo-shopped images and surgically enhanced bodies, she may never hear about the already beautiful girls who have died in their yearning to measure up to that artificial ideal that their genetics never intended for them to be.

Tell her about Anna.

Remind her that Barbie is made of plastic and cosmetic surgery can kill.

Having experienced cosmetic surgery myself, during a time in my life when I was in no emotional state to make such life altering decisions, I can say for certain that nobody ever sat me down and asked my *why* I was taking such a risk with my life.

I was already pretty.

Nobody cared enough to ask me if I was alright inside of my head.

I wasn't.

Nobody ever considered telling me to get my papers in order and my ducks in a row, because this procedure could kill me. Sure, deep down, somewhere, I must have known that there was a risk--but at that point in my life, I'd have done anything to become one of *them*. And that yearning to look better--more perfect, more polished---more lovable---consumed my better judgement. I just wanted my straying husband to love me again.

I know how Pete's little girl felt when she asked her father for the funds to augment her breasts. She wanted the pain of not being one of *them* to go away...forever.

Its impossible to know whether the knowledge that Anna could die in her quest to become one of *them* would have chanted her fate. But if the worst should happen, and Anna should die, at least her father would have the peace of knowing that Anna not only knew the risks, and understoond them, but that she was prepared to accept them as her fate.

Pray for Anna. And then pray for Pete.

I don't know what will become of him without his princess.

*names have been changed for the protection of Pete and Anna's privacy

May love always rule in your life.

Liane

The Pinking Down of America?

Pink, pink, everywhere. And not a blemish in sight.

There was a whole new level of elite to aspire to at Harmony High. Like the A-list, only prettier.

Trust me on this. Goth was the only place left to hide. Until we found a cure. Which was going to be hard because nobody who was "in the pink" believed they were sick.

After all, they had perfect lives, perfect boyfriends, and complexions to die for…

But at what expense? That was the question nobody dared to ask. So for now, it was just us, the Goths, against them, the Beau-toxics.

~v~

It's (so not) A Barbie World was inspired by the real life Barbie clone, Cindy Jackson. The article below tells of Cindy's obsession with making herself look as much like Barbie as humanly possible. When a friend of mine developed body dysmorphic disorder during a similar quest, I couldn't help but wonder what message this type of insatiable yearning for plastic perfection was sending to girls my daughter's age.

While I'm not necessarily anti-cosmetic surgery--I once gave in to pressure from my husband to have my navel pierced and my lips done--I am anti-doing anything to your body that you're not doing for solely to please yourself.

When I gave in to my flirtation with cosmetic surgery, I didn't do it for me. I did it because I was afraid of losing him. That freaking hurt, both mentally and physically, and I've been sorry I did it every day since. I sent my daughter a terrible message.

Months ago, I began to fantasize about what might happen to a jaded young lady who'd been burned by the A-list more than once came home to find that her uber-cool mom had experienced a bizarre accident which left her believing she was Barbie incarnate.

This book in progress is the sometimes snarkish, sometimes heartbreaking and often rollicking result of that exploration. I went into the book expecting a light and frothy beach read. But the actual writing is proving this book to be the anti-thesis of the pinking down of America. My inspiration article below:


For millions of little girls, the Barbie doll has been the pinnacle of plastic perfection for more than 40 years. “I think a lot of little 6-year-old girls or younger even now are looking at that doll and thinking, ‘I want to be her.’ And it’s something they grow out of,” says Cindy Jackson, 48, who admits that she never outgrew her obsession with becoming Barbie. “I looked at a Barbie doll when I was 6 and said, ‘This is what I want to look like.’” Cindy wasn’t born with good looks. She bought them. And along the way, she’s bought a lot of attention to her odd goal of becoming a living doll. Correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports.

“This is who I’d like to be,” says Cindy. “This is glamorous.” Cindy grew up a farm girl in Fremont, Ohio. “I wasn’t that good looking. And my sister was really, really a pretty girl,” recalls Cindy. “She was breathtaking. And everyone used to talk to her more and smile at her more and notice her first.” But Cindy says she had a lot going for her, even with her old looks: “I was recognized as being highly intelligent when I was a child. I was never shy. I was never lazy. And I was never lacking in ambition.” At 21, Cindy packed up her things and moved to London, where she went through a lot of changes – including a short career as a punk rocker. Finally, at 33, she began the grand transformation. “I just wanted to look better,” says Cindy. “Barbie was the blank canvas I filled in all those years ago. It was still my role model.”

Cindy didn’t have any of Barbie’s looks, but she did have some money, which she inherited. It was enough to begin the surgeries that made her as plastic as her role model. “I had laser surgery on my forehead,” says Cindy. “I’ve had upper eyes done, lower eyes done twice. Cheek implants, nose job – two nose jobs.” She also had four facelifts, a chin reduction, several chemical peels, and more. “My upper lift has been cut and rolled upwards to shorten the gap between my nose and mouth,” adds Cindy. “My eyebrows, eyeliner and lip liner and the full lipstick is tattooed on.” It took 31 operations and 14 years, but Cindy’s strange passion for plastic surgery got her a new look -- and a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. How much did all that surgery cost? “About $100,000,” says Cindy. “But I did get quality discounts.” And that doesn’t include maintenance. For instance, her lips will not permanently stay pouty. They’ll have to be re-inflated every few months. “How much of the problem with your old looks do you think was a perception problem in yourself,” Schlesinger asks Cindy. “Absolutely zero,” says Cindy. “It’s not that deep. It’s not that psychological.”

Since Cindy re-invented herself, she has made some snapshot friendships with Ivana Trump, Michael Jackson and Sarah Ferguson. She’s also written a book, which she sells on her own Web site. She now makes a living becoming a kind of celebrity. But just like a surgeon needs a scalpel, or a tummy needs a tuck, a Barbie needs a Ken. And Cindy got hers soon enough.

Tim Whitfield Line, 36, was a web designer who lived north of London. He saw Cindy on television, and all of a sudden had a new goal in life. “I wanted to be a male version of her,” says Line. It didn’t take long. About one year and $50 thousand later, he’s now Miles Kendall -- new name, new face. “People call me shallow. But I call society shallow. Because they treat me differently now,” says Miles. “…I mean I wanted to look better anyway. I did. Who doesn’t? People like me or Cindy Jackson go a bit further. A lot.” They’re just perfect, and delighted – and just friends. But whatever went on between Barbie and Ken is not going on here.

But as Barbie and Ken, Cindy and Miles credit their new faces for their new lives. Cindy helped Miles open his new bar, and it’s a goal he says he reached with the help of plastic surgery. “The point is I’m content inside. I don’t worry about my looks anymore,” says Miles. “I want to concentrate on more important things in my life, which I’m doing now.” And Cindy, at 48, is also content to be the poster girl for plastic surgery, a plastic image she’s dreamt about becoming since she was 6 years old.

“The surgery was a means to an end. That’s all,” says Cindy. “There are so many people who are being held back by their looks, and if that can help give them a better quality of life and make them happier – what else is more important in life?” © MMIV, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.