"The Doll that Started it Alll"

Critics have swarmed the news to make Barbie's latest career as a swimsuit model on the cover of Sports Illustrated.  She's been a teacher, a doctor, and a mom. So why not a model?  Striking a confident pose with the caption "#unapologetic" beside her, Barbie refuses to say "I'm sorry" for being the pretty and perhaps unrealistic portrayal of beauty that leads to most of her criticism.

And I may get backlash for this.. but she shouldn't have to apologize.  While she does display impossible body proportions and standards of beauty, she is a doll. She's not real.  Growing up, my memories with Barbie were of me assigning her new roles.  I tested my own aspirations through Barbie and made her become whatever I wanted to be at the time.  When I wanted to be a mom, I gathered Barbie and her children and took them for a ride around plastic grocery isles.   When I decided I wanted to be a teacher (a dream now abandoned), I placed Barbie in front of a mini chalkboard and commanded a classroom of stuffed animals.

Never once during my playtime with Barbie was I pressured to think about how I needed to physically resemble her one day. I did not want to be Barbie because of her long golden hair or her perfectly sculpted legs.  I wanted to be Barbie, because she could be virtually anything.  And to this day, I would love to be able to do all the things that Barbie could do.

So.. Barbie shouldn't apologize.  She's been a beauty icon for decades, along with an inspiring example that an individual has the ability to do anything that they put their mind too.  Her image has remained consistent and unchanging in society since the middle of the twentieth century.  Altering her appearance to appease critics in recent years would just send an entirely new negative message to adolescents - modifying oneself to match the expectations of others.  And I think describing Barbie as 'unapologetic' conveys the point  that they should never make these changes.  No one should have to apologize for who they are or what they look like.  This is a message that should be preached beyond adolescence, well into adulthood.

The cover urges all onlookers to be true to themselves and to be confident in who they are.  However, I'm not absolutely comfortable with Mattel's choice of using Sports Illustrated as their medium.  Sports Illustrated leads to an entirely new issue of the sexualization of Barbie.  Barbie is obviously a doll targeted for a young female audience, and placing her in the realm of objectified sex idols muddles her status as a model for these young girls.

But Mattel knew what they were doing when they teamed up with Sports Illustrated- much like Coke was aware of the potential public response to their recent Super Bowl commercial. Mattel's provocative marketing move has stirred up talk around a doll who has recently experienced a drop-off in her ratings and sales.  They've created controversial chaos.  And they aren't apologizing  for it.