At some point in their youth, most little girls wish for the same thing for either their birthday or Christmas. They simply want the gift of a Barbie doll. Little girls around the world are infatuated with how beautiful Barbie is. With her perfect proportions, long blonde hair, and the many different styles that she comes in, she is irresistible to young girls around the world, and the narrator of The Birthday Barbie was no different. For years she could not get the thought of owning her own Barbie out of her head, that is until her dad’s girlfriend bought her exactly the one she wanted. After her mother’s death, it finally gave her a role model that she could connect with. However, as it seems that Barbie exceeds the expectations for the looks of normal human beings, the narrator was focusing on false concepts. Not only did she lose her own mother as a role model, but she was also focusing all of her attention on an object that had humanly impossible proportions. The lack of positive, realistic role models and influences in the narrator's youth caused her to grow up lacking self-esteem and confidence, ultimately resulting in false presumptions about what beauty is.
There are many events that can lead to having low self-esteem, however, losing a parent due to breast cancer can certainly have a huge impact on the way you view yourself. Something similar happened to the narrator of The Birthday Barbie when her mother not only died of breast cancer but also had a double mastectomy before she passed. For a young girl, a mother is an imperative role model when it comes to confidence and viewing beauty for what it truly is. For the narrator, the last thing she can remember is that her mother left this world suffering with no breasts which is not an image of beauty that she wanted to remember. This event can cause trauma in a young girl, especially due to the fact that breast cancer is hereditary, making the narrator lose confidence in herself because she may look like that herself. Additionally, researchers such as Rochlin and Kliman have proven that “children often assess themselves more negatively after a parents’ death” (Bereavement During Childhood and adolescence, Ch. 5). Many times, children put the blame on themselves and start to wonder if their parents did not love them, or if they did something to contribute to their death, which causes them to lack self-esteem and confidence even more than they previously did. In this instance, there are many things in the narrators' youth that could have contributed to her having low self-esteem, however, the possibilities do not stop here.
Even though the narrator’s mother died, before she passed she made sure that her daughter knew that Barbie dolls were forbidden to her. This is evident when the narrator explains that “But I yearned for the doll she’d forbidden, as if Barbie could tell me what everything meant” (Townsend, 176). In the story, the narrator constantly makes references to the Barbie’s slim proportions and “torpedo breasts” alluding to how “she was who I wanted to be… Barbie was sex without sex” (Townsend 176). Later in the story, it is obvious that the narrator has been using Barbie as a symbol for her mother when she explains that “Barbie could tell me what everything meant — how to be a woman when I was a girl with no mother” (Townsend, 176). It is at this point in the story where the readers can see that the Barbie is not being used as something to simply play with, instead the narrator is using it as a role model because she feels as if she has no one else to look up to, which makes one wonder why she wouldn’t look to her stepmother rather than her Barbie for inspiration. Yet, because the narrator is using the Barbie as a symbol for her mother, it easy to understand that this is a much nicer, fuller image to remember than the more disturbing image of when she explains that her "mother had been dead for five months, both her breasts cut off like raw meat” alluding to why she constantly speaks of the breasts on the doll (Townsend, 176). Before her death, the narrator’s mother urged her daughter not to get a Barbie doll, because she knew it would eventually lead to her seeing something so perfect and wanting to recreate an image that wasn’t humanly impossible. Without the mother there to stop her though, the narrator did exactly what she was told not to. This ultimately resulted in becoming fixated on a false concept of impossible beauty due to the absence of an important role model, and the addition of a newly deceased parent.
While Barbie’s have always had outrageous features that are impeccably proportionate, there are also arguments surrounding whether someone can truly be that skinny without the use of procedures. Due to the controversy of how “Barbie’s unusual thinness is also a subject of scrutiny for many,” Barbie has recently come out with new models that represent all body types. (Frydryk, 8). During the time when The Birthday Barbie was published in 1953, there may have been different styles of Barbie, but not different body types. All Barbies during this time, disregarding outfits and hair color, had the exact same body proportions, which did not blatantly broadcast that this was the image of perfection, but ultimately advertised that this is what it took to be beautiful. It was not until sixty-three years later in 2016 that Barbie introduced the tall, petite, and curvy Barbie dolls to the collection. Even with the addition of these body types, it is not hard to distinguish between Barbie’s measurements and those of an average, American woman as they are very different in multiple ways. For example, when scaling Barbie’s measurements to correspond with life-size dimensions, “Original Barbie has measurements of 167.4 cm in height, a 54 cm waist, and hips that are 78 cm, while the average American woman measures 163 cm in height, a 90 cm waist, and hips measuring 107 cm” (Frydryk, Fig. 1, 9). In addition, even with the inclusion of the tall, petite, and curvy Barbies, the measurements still do not come close to an average, American woman. These measurements include in height: 180 cm (tall), 150 cm (petite), and 167.4 cm (curvy), in waist size: 56.4 cm (tall), 52.8 cm (petite), and 63 cm (curvy), and in hip measurements: 78 cm (tall), 72 cm (petite), and 91.2 cm (curvy).
With these measurements in mind, it is obvious that the addition of the new body styles ultimately had a negative correlation in regards to similarity to the average, American woman’s measurements and proportions. This makes it extremely hard for people to connect with something that was created to be even more “like” them. However, in many cases, people will continue to find the smallest similarity in order to connect with beauty such as the narrator did in The Birthday Barbie. When her father’s girlfriend gifts her the Barbie she’s been wanting she exclaims that she is perfect, “her hair a color the box described as ‘Titian,’ a brownish-orange color I’ve never seen since. But I didn’t care, my hair was brown too” (Townsend, 176). In this instance, the Barbie really looks nothing like the narrator, but in order for her to see herself as beautiful, she must make some kind of connection with the faultless doll.
Going more into depth, Courtney Frydryk’s research explains that “girls’ choices are more reflective of the world they see today” (Frydryk, 8). This is an important reason why the narrator would have experienced low self-esteem and confidence when idolizing a doll that was supposed to exhibit similarities between herself and the perfect image of the Barbie, but it rather more distinctly conveyed the ways that they were different. Yet, the times following the release of the Original 1953 Barbie have not changed much, except that rather than dolls, social media is taking the lead for body shaming young woman. Now of days, the concept that “Beauty sells!” is becoming one of the most prominent notions in the 21st century and has evolved from earlier times such as when the toy sales of all other toys fell while Barbie sales rose 9% in the 4th quarter alone, thus proving the statement that beauty sells (Wall St.). In today’s society, Instagram models are much more available for young girls to see as technology advances, but similarly to the Barbie, beauty industries and companies around the world trick you into thinking their models and ideas are flawless.
The narrator believed she was looking up to a role model who was beautiful, confident, and loved, while she was actually worshipping a plastic fantasy of a woman. Today, young girls around the world continue to do this as they strive to be more like the models they see on social media. However, what many girls do not realize is that like the Barbie doll the narrator received in The Birthday Barbie, the women who post these promiscuous pictures are not how they truly appear. Brangien Davis explains that many women have internal conflicts regarding their looks and say, “I was so obsessed with how fat I was that I constantly compared myself to every girl on television, in magazines, even in cartoons!” (Davis, 20). Comparing yourself to others is one of the easiest ways to lower your own self-confidence because you will never truly be that person. Although many people may want to look the part of these models, it is important to remember that these “flawless” images are highly altered when it comes to photoshop, the amount of makeup that is used to create perfection, as well as the lights, angles, and countless pictures it requires to generate the ultimate photo. As previously mentioned, beauty sells which is why the pictures presented for advertisements online and in magazines must be perfect. If the pictures do not match the product advertising beauty, it is safe to say that no one would invest in the product because there is no guarantee of successful results.
Likewise to The Birthday Barbie, in everyday life when people are lacking a role model, they seem to pick something that is beautiful to look up to in hopes that it will offer even the most minute connection, making people feel as if they are worth something. However, beauty does not create happiness, and looking up to a gorgeous woman, or doll for that matter, will not help “to tell me what everything meant — how to be a woman when I was a girl with no mother, how to dress and talk” as the narrator of thought would happen (Townsend, 176). In order to have meaningful, learning lessons in life, these experiences must come from a role model who is not based primarily on an idea of beauty is. Without the influence of positive, realistic role-models in a person’s youth, they can grow up lacking the basic self-esteem and confidence they need to thrive in a world filled with shame and hate. Beauty is simply placed in the eye of the beholder, and as perfectly mentioned in The Birthday Barbie, “Girls learn how to be women not from their dolls but from the women around them.” -Yona Zeldis McDonough