Men are self-confident because they grow up identifying with super-heroes. Women have bad self-images because they grow up identifying with Barbie.
For my first acting gig, I was a hand model for a Barbie commercial that was only going to air in Asia. And I was constantly trying to get my face in the shot.
Ariel may look a lot like Barbie, and her adventure may be limited to romance and over with the wedding bells, but unlike, say, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, she's active, brave and determined, the heroine of her own life. She even rescues the prince. And that makes her a rare fish, indeed, in the world of preschool culture.
Growing up, my dolls were doctors and on secret missions. I had Barbie Goes Rambo.
Yep, I often lit the barbie with old drafts.
If I'm feeling like a Barbie girl, I'm gonna throw that blonde wig on. It's just the mood.
A lesser complaint: hair extensions. There are moments on 'All My Children' when half the women actors, young and old, seem to be afflicted by android Barbie creep. All those thick swatches of lifeless strands clustering lankly round ladies' necks! Like orange tanning spray, this is a fashion fad that should be put out of its misery.
Both my husband and I wanted a boy. I wasn't sure what I'd do with a daughter. What if she asked for a Barbie? I would have been like, 'Honey, we don't support Barbie because she isn't an accurate depiction of a woman's body.'
I'm an avid collector of toys. I got everything. Name it. From the Easy Bake Oven to Barbies to every TV show doll, racing cars... I've been collecting since I was a little kid.
I think, for a long time, people just did not know what to do with me. I looked like a Barbie doll, and then I had this voice like I spend my life in a bar, and I said things that were alarming and had ideas that didn't make sense.
My mom was a big feminist, and when I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to have typical girl toys: she did not let me have dolls. Barbies were banned in our household. She read feminist books to me; my mom was a major feminist.