I have to wonder how many Barbie dolls are currently in the dark confines of a neatly-wrapped gift box, trembling beneath a dying tree in anticipation of the horrors to come. Lost? Read this from an AP feed over on Yahoo (Link):
“The girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a ‘cool’ activity,” said Agnes Nairn, one of the University of Bath researchers. “The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving.”
Later in the article, the manufacturer has this to say:
Mattel U.K. said that despite the findings of “this very small group of children, we know that there are millions of girls in the U.K. and across the world that love and enjoy playing with Barbie and will continue to do so in the future.”
Maybe the confusion comes from a definition of the word “play”? Certainly Mattel is reaching by saying any child actually feels “love” for these pieces of plastic. Aren’t they?
See “Whither psychoanalysis in a computer culture” by Sherry Turkle (http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0529.html?printable=1), which argues that, as our artefacts become more complex, and capable of more sophisticated representations of ‘human-ness’, “the question is not just whether our children will come to love their toy robots more than their parents, but what will loving itself come to mean? “.
She discusses whether psychoanalytic object-relations theory needs to change as the ‘objects’ (which classically are not objects but internalised emotions or realtionships) become actual objects. Elderly Japanese people with robot carers come to feel genuine emotions for them, etc etc.
Girls torturing Barbie dolls would be grist to Dr Turkle’s mill. The question is, though, do they torture Barbie dolls more than they used to torture wodden dolls 200 years ago? (Historical-sociological thesis here.)
That was actually a loaded question at the end. I recognized years ago that Western culture (at least and myself included) both objectified people and humanized objects. The word “love” has in many ways become meaningless in the traditional sense.
That said, I tend to believe that the opposite of real Love is Indifference; not Hate. So in the case of Barbie, this behavior becomes particularly interesting given all that surrounds this toy; which is – as far as toys go – the king AND queen of social controversy and debate.
Now what gets me is this: if mothers who grew up with (and eventually tortured) their Barbie dolls are giving these same toys to their children as gifts, what exactly is it that’s being given? And is it something with which a brand really wishes to be associated?