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The National Post
Rondi Adamson
March 19, 2002
Poor Barbie. She gets blamed for everything. Your daughter has low self-esteem? Take away that Barbie! She failed math? Take away that Barbie! And now the Barbie bashing has become the West's latest export to Iran. And it's not part of the war on terror.
Iran's Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, a government agency affiliated with the Ministry of Education, has developed "Dara and Sara," two dolls meant to counter the popularity of Barbie, who along with Ken, Skipper and the gang, is currently flooding the Islamic nation. Dara, a boy doll, and Sara, a girl doll, promote traditional values with their modest clothing, including headscarfs and long skirts for Sara, and non-blond, non-glamorous appeal. Both dolls are dark-haired and sloe-eyed, and neither has a Dream House, convertible or 40DD bra size and five-inch heels. And no, Dara is not allowed to marry four Saras. Mohsen Chiniforoushan, the Institute's director, said the dolls are a strategic product to promote Iran's national identity. One hundred thousand of the Sara and Dara dolls, which are made in China, were introduced into Iran's market last week amid an impressive publicity rush.
In a country where the average monthly salary is $100, the $15 dolls are not cheap and certainly more expensive than an Iranian Barbie knock-off would be ($3). Genuine Barbies cost $40, but do sell well in Iran. A toy vendor in Tehran, interviewed about Sara and Dara, said that she considers Barbie "more harmful than an American missile." Barbie is, the toy seller said, "wanton" and young Iranian girls who play with Barbies could grow up to reject Iranian values.
As in the West, the focus is on girls, on Barbie, on Sara. No one over there seems concerned that Ken might make Iranian boys reject traditional values and become wanton. No one here seems concerned that Ken might be making boys grow up to be vapid, sculpted and uncommunicative. Of course, Ken has no penis, and therefore might be sending an even scarier message, but again, no one seems concerned.
The arrival of Sara on the doll scene was announced about a week after Mattel came out with "Kayla" a "multi-ethnic" Barbie, wearing something resembling
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a sari/kimono/bathrobe. Barbie already has African-American, Latina and Asian-American friends, and Mattel were not clear about exactly where Kayla's parents are from, or how they met. She looks vaguely Polynesian, though she has exactly the same figure as all the other Barbies. Even "Becky," the cheerful Barbie-in-a-wheelchair Mattel introduced five years ago has that kick-ass figure, in spite of her paralyzed state.
Which is all fine. For not enough credit is given to young girls in terms of their intelligence -- ironically, usually feminists are the ones doing the underestimating. Of course Barbie is wanton. And she has an impossibly wonderful body (though probably not much good for childbearing purposes) and a silly look on her face. But she is a doll, nothing more.
I loved my Barbie dolls and had all the accoutrements. But I never thought I had to look like Barbie any more than I thought I had to look like Raggedy Ann or Mrs. Beasley. I liked making clothes for Barbie, and playing house with her and Ken, except when my brothers would come along and put Ken in a compromising position with G.I. Joe. But even that did not traumatize me, because I knew they were just dolls.
In the early 1990s, a company called "High Self-Esteem Toys" (that's not a joke) came out with the "Happy to be Me Doll." She had a normal figure, even a little on the tubby side, and she wasn't very pretty. She didn't have great clothes, either. Sales were not good. She was left in Barbie's dust, to the surprise of many do-gooders. But there was nothing surprising about it. Little girls want an ideal. It's the same reason little boys like superhero action figures instead of dolls called "Bob, the miserable, overweight, middle-aged, commitmentphobic loser."
We do not give enough credit to girls for their intelligence or understand who they look up to. My niece, now in junior high, listens to her teachers, though I'm not certain she always should. When she became a vegetarian (like her auntie) her classmates panicked, telling her they thought she was anorexic. She isn't, she just doesn't want to eat dead animals any more. But the girls had been taught in health class that anyone who gives up eating a whole food group has an eating disorder, that eating disorders are widespread, and that Barbie is to blame. Who else?
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