Monday 13 April 2009

The Doll Culture.


For my major project I wanted to look into the doll culture. I had a general interest in who these dolls are and how people relate to them.
Wanting to attract a wider audience for my final piece i wanted to concentrate on a doll that was popular world wide and that would be interesting to a wide age group aswell. I decided on The Barbie Doll.
Whilst looking into the Barbie, It became clear that although the Barbie was also critiscised. Feminists have criticised the doll for promoting an unrealistic body ideal for women and potentially damaging the self-image of young girls.

I've started the project with Barbie in mind and thought about the many different jobs barbie has and has had over the years. I wanted to almost take the piss out of how unrealistic the Barbie is and try and create personalities for Barbie that could ultimately be these young girls who are under the influence of Barbie in bad ways and feel pressured to look like Barbie. I would do this through drawing and actually changing Barbies i will buy. Examples of Barbies i might construct could be, Punk Barbie, Teenage mum Barbie, anorexic Barbie and drug abusing Barbie.

In this project i would really like my final piece to be an animation and drawings of some kind? It seems the perfect oppertunity to try it as i've never done animation before and its something that interests me greatly.

This was the second re-write of my Brief and Context.
Brief: ''Challenging peoples perspectives and stereotypes of Barbie. Is she all good?"

Context: Dolls have been around since the beginning of human civilization, and nowadays are appreciated by a wide audience, the young and the old (obviously in different ways and for different reasons).
Through finding one of the most popular dolls, Barbie, It's clear that most written about the doll is positive, especially as it was Barbies' 50th birthday in March aswell.
Not all to do with the doll is positive. One of the most common criticisms of the doll is that she promotes an unrealistic idea of body image for young girls, leading to a risk that girls who attempt to be like Barbie will become anorexic.
Is Ruth Handlers' creation ultimately empowering or victimising? How can i show this victimisation?


Being in the early stages of my project i am looking to find the most popular type of doll, which will then serve in drawing in a wider audience for my final piece, and in deciding what i want my final piece to be..and achieve.
As initial research i went on the hunt for any kind of dolls, here are a couple of photos I captured in the studio of 'Rachel' the doll I bought in a charity shop.


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