Barbie's in the news again. It seems her partnership with the Girl Scouts has a couple of organizations upset.
My first thought was what kind of deal is going on between the two in the first place. After a little research it seems that girls can actually earn a badge for Barbie participation. There is some kind of activity book that goes with this and it is the first corporate sponsored badge for the Scouts.
The organizations named that are upset about this dynamic duo are the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for a New American Dream. They feel that the Barbie doll sexualizes (their word, not mine and the spell checker says it's not a real word) young girls, gives them the model of an impossible body and underscores the original mission of being a Girl Scout. They are calling for the GS to end the relationship. The GS says no.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard and a great example of yet another oxymoron.
First, a commercial free childhood? Really? How's this for commercial free.........turn the freaking TV off. Better yet, don't even have a TV in the house. Has parenting and common sense gone so far out the window that adults don't know, or explain, to their children that not everything seen on television is absolute truth? Is this the same mindset that causes parents to take their children into a toy store, 3 weeks before Christmas, causing said children to have a fit because they've been told they can't have anything in the store?
While looking at an advertisement the other day for the company that provides our TV viewing entertainment, there was a line that caught my eye. It said "commercial free viewing" but that the customer had to enable this feature. I don't know if our package has this feature, but I'm going to check into it. It will probably take more knowledge of the remote control than I possess, but being commercial free would considerably cut down on the amount of my TV viewing. Maybe that organization needs to see if their provider offers the same thing.
As far as the new American dream goes, I've never in my life heard a little girl say she wanted to be a Barbie doll when she grows up. Maybe that's because she realizes the formed piece of plastic is a formed piece of plastic and isn't real. I had Barbie dolls as a kid and never once did I dream of wanting my feet to be shaped like hers.
Don't these people have anything better to do with their time?
I imagine the main reason for the partnership in the first place was money. Although Barbie sales are a bit down, they still brought in over $1.3 billion last year for Mattel. The new CEO for the Girl Scouts is making a whopping $400K and is referred to as the "cookie monster".....not the blue fuzzy one either. She also spent over $65,000 on her corporate bathroom. Remember that when your little girl, or you, are trying to boost the 'so full of sugar they make your head spin' cookie sales.
If Mattel would come out with a new version of Barbie it would probably settle the riff and come close to bringing about world peace. It could be the Girl Scout Cookie Barbie, complete with a box of Thin Mints under her arm, cavities with gold fillings, low slung jeans with a soft muffin top hanging out under a bare midriff shirt, cell phone permanently affixed in the palm of her hand along with permanently adhered ear buds in the ears, a couple of piercings and tattoos and as an added bonus, high blood pressure and high blood sugar. Maybe they could even throw in a free badge.
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