Anu Orebiyi
Freakery and the Barbie Doll: A Brief Examination of Freakery in Society
Statement of Interdisciplinarity: My major is Biology, and although I do draw on biology in pages 14-22 (especially pages 17-18), there a lot of other disciplines that are used within this a paper. A few of these disciplines are History,
which is highlighted in the thesis statement and is intertwined throughout the paper , Anthropology/Sociology especially on page 20, and English, through literature review and analysis within the first fourteen pages of this paper. In addition, some other disciplines mentioned are psychology and communications.
The enfreakment of the female body is not a novel concept in our society. It can be seen both in the freak shows, which occurred centuries ago and in the toys that little girls play with today. Although it can be argued that our society has matured and the prescence of freakery has died down, on the other hand, it can aslo be argued that freakery and the enfreakment of the female body is something that is still pervasive within our modern society. Through the examination and summary of essays in Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body, the analysis of two critiques regarding Tod Browning’s movie, Freaks, and the exploration of how the Barbie doll enfreaks women all over the world, the focus of this paper is to scrutinize freakery and demonstrate that the word “freakery” is still applicable and present in our world, today.
In a historical context, the enfreakment of human abnormalities is nothing new. Dating as far back as Stone Age drawings recording monstrous births, society has been fascinated with these “not-quite human” humans. These “not-quite human” humans do not fit into the rigid pre-conceived boundaries of society. Some cross gender boundaries such as hermaphrodites, who can have both male and female sexual parts while others have no physical abnormalities but are fascinating due to their exotic origins ranging from Africa to Circassia. Yet, why are human beings so fascinated with these humans who are oh-so similar yet oh-so different? Within Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body, Rosemarie Garland Thomson and many other essayists attempt to answer this question by examining it from several different angles, and these angles are succinctly laid out within the introductory chapter.
Within this book, the essays are compiled under six headings based on the different angles used by the essayists. Part I, “The Cultural Construction of Freaks,” examines the overall historical and cultural trends resulting from freakery based on the perspectives presented by Robert Bogdan, David A. Gerber, and Elizabeth Grosz. Part II, “Practices of Enfreakment,” explores the different ways that freakery was both displayed and advertised to the general public. Part III, “Exhibiting Corporeal Freaks,” scrutinizes the displaying of freaks, who would now be considered “disabled” and also how certain individual displays can be linked to political and social issues that were simultaneously arising more and more within society. Part IV, “Exhibiting Cultural Freaks,” explores the idea that non-Westerners were considered exotic and even freakish because they differed from our societies’ norms. Part V, “Textual Uses of Freaks” looks at the overflow of freakery from society and into films and literature. Finally, Part VI, observes contemporary sightings of the freak show although these sightings are molded in a way that is more acceptable within our modern society. Out of these six multifaceted parts, this essay will examine five of six headings (excluding Part V, “Textual Uses of Freaks).
The notations or even reactions within society, which are duly noted within Garland’s work, in response to freakery are not surprising. Like a bully, society pokes, prods, and parades anything that it considers unusual or inferior but the methods that are used continue to change over time. As Garland Thomson puts it, “…the cultural resonances accorded them (freaks) arise from the historical and intellectual moments in which these bodies are embedded.”1 Therefore, what was once considered entrancing and entertaining may later be disgusting and disgraceful. The term used to describe this “trajectory of historical change in the ways the anomalous body is framed within the cultural imagination” is the “freak discourse.”2 Freak discourse encompasses the surge of freakery’s appeal within museums and circuses and the ebb of its appeal as modernity medically categorized anomalies and condoned freak shows as a whole. It also encompasses the many transformations in the presentation of freak shows, which has changed based on society’s changing constructs.
Another important aspect in examining freakery, besides the changing social constructs, are the ways in which different people examine freakery from a more historical and cultural perspective. In Part I, Bogdan defines the freak show as a social construction. He states that the “’freak’ is a way of thinking about and presenting people—a frame of mind and a set of practices.”3 Therefore, according to his theory anyone or anything can be a freak because freakery is less of a general description and more a frame of mind. The freak show, in some instances, did take normal people and enfreaked certain aspects about them, therefore transforming them into a freak. An example of this is the very first Circassian beauty displayed by Barnum & Bailey, who instead of being an exotic Circassian was a Turk living in New York City who was in need of a job.4
In addition, Bogdan uses two modes of representation to show the social construction of freakery. These two modes are the aggrandized and exotic modes of representation. The aggrandized mode lays a claim of the superiority of the freak over others.5 It does this by highlighting grandiose accomplishments of the freak both in the past and the present. On the other hand, the other mode of representation, the exotic mode, highlights the inferiority or the “uncivilized” aspects of the freak by depicting them as savages and dressing them up in exotic costumes with exotic backdrops.
All together, Bogdan focuses on the presentation of freakery and argues that the freak show is more like a profitable organization, in which the organization does all that it can to bring in an income. Bogdan even goes so far as to say that freak shows are equivalent to modern day human service agencies, which focus on earning money to support people with medical oddities.6
While Bogdan paints the freak show as a profitable and even positive construct, Gerber contradicts him. While Bogdan assumes the willingness of people to be exhibits and attempts to give value to their roles as presenters, 7 Gerber highlights the lack of choice that these performers were given. After already living a life highlighted by people stigmatizing, ostracizing, and continuously staring at them, the only other alternative from this suffering was to become a human exhibit and to make money from the continuous stares that they were already receiving.8 Therefore in Gerber’s opinion, there is nothing entertaining or good within these freak shows because for several freaks these shows were their only to make money and not be completely ostracized by society.
In Grosz’s essay, she examines why society treats freak as it does. She notes that “the freak is an object of simultaneous horror and fascination because… the freak is an ambiguous being whose existence imperils categories and oppositions dominant social life.”9 This ambiguity that both attracts and repulses is rather complex to the viewer because there are no categories to encapsulate it, therefore making it perplexing and possibly even intolerable since it can not be easily labeled and understood. Two examples used to characterize this intolerable ambiguity are the Siamese twins, Chang and Eng, who are more than one but not quite two beings, and hermaphrodites, which provide a complex middle ground between the polar opposites of male and female.
In Part II, the essays focus on methods used to enfreak the intolerably ambigious and undefinable freaks. Another aspect of freakery that makes it even more perplexing to society is the fact that you do not have to be “freakish” in order to be a freak. In “Social Order and Psychological Disorder: Laughing Gas Demonstrations, 1800-1850” by Ellen Hickey Grayson, we see that even audience members can be turned into freaks. Just like freaks, who evoked the curiosities of the public with their anomalies, “laughing gas demonstrations placed individuals from the audience onstage and, one by one, subjected them to the scrutiny of the audience,”10 the same scrutiny that freaks dealt with on a daily basis.
There are several other different themes and aspects, in addition to the audience becoming enfreaked, which are examined within Part II. Another one of the themes examined is the ease in which freak show managers could manipulate and deceive the audiences. In “P. T. Barnum’s Theatrical Selfhood and the Nineteenth-Century Culture Exhibition” by Elizabeth Fretz, Fretz shows how Barnum “re-vamped” himself within his autobiographies in the same fashion that he “re-vamped” freaks in order to make himself more appealing in the eyes of the public.11 In addition, Barnum re-vamped Joice Heth an 80 year old woman and turned her into the 161 year old nursemaid of George Washington.
It is astonishing to look back at these lies and see that there were actually people, who believed that these lies were true. Likewise, what is even more perplexing is that there were people, who probably knew that these were lies, and yet they still went to freak shows and were entranced by the antics displayed by freak show managers such as Barnum. A way that these freak show managers, like Barnum, were able to draw in even the most intellectual and scientific audience was through aspects of persuasion. Just as an actor or an actress must be able to draw in the crowd that he or she is performing for, freak show managers studied the crowd and did whatever was in their power to at least capture the attention of the audience members and to ignite their curiosities about what was going on inside the freak show. In “Photography and Persuasion: Farm Security Administration Photographs of Circus and Carnival Sideshows 1935-1942”, Ronald E. Ostman paints a graphic picture of an African man eating a snake outside the entrance of a freak show while a talker draws the crowd’s attention through his seemingly off-handed comments, and then, at the end, when the crowd is stunned from this grotesque yet fascinating feat, the talker lures the crowd into the freak show by promising more strangely interesting feats inside the show.12
Another method that freak shows and museums used to draw in unsuspecting audience members was through the clever weaving of different anxieties within society into their exhibits. In the essays “Monsters in the Marketplace: The Exhibition of Human Oddities in Early Modern England” by Paul Semonin and in “Death-Defying/Defining Spectacles: Charles Willson Peale as Early American Freak Showman” by Edward Schwarzschild, the authors refer to two different anxieties that were predominant within the time periods of these essays and even today: religion and death. In Semonin’s essay, he shows how even religion in its own right aided the freak shows that it condemned. An example of this are the divine comedies that they put on that portrayed the devil in a freakish yet hilarious manner,13 which is how many people viewed freaks, and in Schwarzschild’s essay, he shows how through the story of Charles Peale that death is uncontrollable, and Charles Peale truly realizes this through the death of one of his children.14
Within life, some things are unexplainable and can not be easily controlled or defined by society and Part III talks about unexplainable issues in the freak show that could be linked to issues occurring simultaneously within the political and social realms of society. One issue that Part III delves into is the early feminist movement and the complexity involved in the Siamese twins, Violet and Daisy Hilton, whose very personhoods of being more than one but not quite two women defied the conventional constructs surrounding women. In Allison Pingree’s essay, “The ‘Exceptions That Prove the Rule’: Daisy and Violet Hilton, the ‘New Woman’, and the Bonds of Marriage,” she terms this more than oneness as the confounding mathematics of personhood15, and in an era in which women’s rights was under controversy, having these two sisters, who were successful, single, and doing well created even more perplexing twists within this controversy. As a result, sometimes when Daisy and Violet are depicted, they were depicted using normalizing narratives in order to “transmute them into safer feminine figures and to contain the chaos that their threatening bodies presented.”16
Another issue that Part III brings to light is through the term nondescript, which is introduced in James W. Cook, Jr.’s “Of Men, Missing Links, and Nondescripts: The Strange Career of P. T. Barnum’s ‘What Is It?’ Exhibition.” In this exhibit, Barnum displays William Henry Johnson, an African-American male, and instead of categorizing him, he leaves it up to the audience to categorize him in their own minds.17 Therefore, this nondescript person, who does not fit any pre-designed classifications, becomes classified in several different ways in the minds of each different audience member.
Through this subtle and unnoticeable approach, Barnum was able to examine and even support racism. By taking an African-American male and making him look more like the missing link between apes and humans, Barnum was able to re-affirm his opinion on the highly disputed issue of African-Americans both as persons and as members within our society, and Barnum did this by taking someone with a description and making him into the embodiment of one that is non-descript.
Another issue that is examined briefly examined in Nigel Rothel’s essay, “Aztecs, Aborigines, and Ape-People: Science and Freaks in Germany, 1850-1900,” and is examined even more within Part IV is the enfreakment of other cultures when compared to Western culture. The term freakmaking is introduced to describe this phenomenon of enfreakment in light of the time period in which it occurred.18 In this chapter, Rothfels examines the freakmaking of the microcephalics known as the “Aztecs” and Krao, the Ape Girl, who in actuality suffered from a rare but known pathology.19 These freaks, victims to society’s superiority complex, who in actuality had medical conditions, were displayed in such a way that whatever culture that they represented was painted as having the same inferior characteristics and attributes as they had.
This whole idea of cultures being depicted in less-than respectful ways because they were different is further explored in Part IV, “Exhibiting Cultural Freaks.” In Bernth Lindfors’ essay, “Enthological Show Business: Footlighting the Dark Continent”, he shows how a show business that was meant for “displaying foreign peoples for commercial and/or educational purposes”20 was used more for the suppression knowledge about foreign people and for the perpetuation of popular beliefs in Western culture about other primitive and inferior cultures. A sad example used by Linfors is the story of the woman, Saarjie Baartman, who is better known as the Hottentot Venus. This lady with an enlarged rump, which was common within her culture, was displayed in a cage with barely any clothes and her rump was poked and prodded by the audience.21 Although Hottentot Venus was supposedly part of an ethnological show, she was used more as a primitive “artifact” of African women instead of as a person capable of teaching others about San women in Africa.
Another example of the backward depictions of foreigners in the freak show is the depiction of the Circassian beauty. The Circassian beauty is painted in Barnum’s biographical sketch of Zoe Meleke as one who is a “most chaste and delicate curiosity”22 like a Victorian beauty, yet most pictures of Circassian beauties focus on their erotic sensuality through their alluring stances, revealing costumes, and bushy afros. It almost seems that the Circassian beauty is considered a beauty not because of her exotic background but more so because she longs to embrace and accept “civilized” Western culture. In fact, when comparing Hottentot Venus to the Circassian beauty, one can apply Bogdan’s modes of representation. Circassian beauty is painted in aggrandized way because she longs to embrace “civilized” Western culture, but Hottentot Venus is painted in a less than favorable, exotic light because she defies and can not fit into the parameters of civilized culture. Yet, in the long run because the Circassian beauty is not a Westerner and can never truly be one, she is painted once again in the exotic mode also therefore degrading the beauty that she has as being inferior to the “proper” beauty displayed in Victorian women.
Leonard Cassuto’s essay, “‘What an object he would have made of me!’: Tatooing and the Racial Freak in Melville’s Typee’” examines this double speak in word and action by examining a character named Tommo. Tommo, at a first glance, seems like someone who is willing to learn more about a culture other than his own, but when the Typee tribe that he is among wishes to truly integrate him into their culture by encouraging him to take part in tattooing and cannibalism, Tommo shows his true colors as a judgmental and superior being from a culture which is much more civilized than this one.23 Yet, objectively, Tommo is less civilized than the Typee tribe because this tribe was willing to accept Tommo despite his differences, but Tommo, on the other hand, was not willing to look past their differences and truly accept them. This can be paralleled to the Circassian beauty never really being accepted as a true beauty within our “civilized society.”
The last part within this compilation of essays is Part VI, “Relocations of the Freak Show”. Part VI shows us that the freak show has not disappeared from our modern and civilized society through essays that examine talk shows, depictions of extra-terrestrials, medical documentaries, bodybuilding, and the celebrity freak. It is easy to see that our society is not as civilized as we depict ourselves to be in comparison to our ancestors and counterparts form past time periods.
In “Being Humaned: Medical Documentaries and the Hyperrealization of Conjoined Twins” by David L. Clark and Catherine Myser, a new issue is raised. Is it better to deal with the confounding mathematics of personhood, or is it better to separate twins and make them now into two freaks,” which can definitely be seen when one twin is missing an arm and other visible parts.24 It seems that despite the leaps and bounds that have occurred in medicine and technology freaks still are not completely integrated into our society, but truly, do we use the improvements made to try to limit the freak to a category because we are unwilling to form a new one?
This question is examined in a different way in “Bodybuilding: A Postmodern Freak Show” by Cecile Lindsay. In this instance, women bodybuilders want to reach their maximum muscle capacities, but due to the more acknowledged category of women being soft and feminine, they are unable to do so. Instead, when they enter into contests, they have to change their appearances based off the differing viewpoints of the judges within these contests. In addition in bodybuilding magazines, although they may promote female bodybuilding within their magazines, the covers of these magazines usually show a very bulky and muscular male flexing while a feminine, skinny, and curvaceous female is shown clinging onto the male’s bulging biceps.25
Despite the leaps and bounds that are shown in comparison to past time periods, freakery still exists within our society although it does so in more acceptable ways to our changing viewpoint. Freakery still crosses boundaries although we try harder to push it within our set boundaries, and as a result, there still does not seem to be a beneficial way to balance the freaks need to be accepted in society and society’s fascination and repulsion with the freak’s ambiguity.
This inability to set freakery within “proper” boundaries not only characterizes society’s reaction to freaks and freak shows in society but also encapsulates the reaction of people to Browning’s movie, Freaks. Freaks is difficult movie to categorize. It can not be called a romance nor can it be called a horror film. At times, the audience does not know whether to be sympathetic towards the freaks or to be gravely afraid of them. Yet, this over-arching theme of not being able to characterize the movie and our emotions towards it seems analogous to the position of freaks, themselves, within society during the 1930s. When this movie first came out, many people protested and strongly disagreed with the displaying of these physical anomalies in movies, and I am sure that it was probably even more disturbing having “real-life” freaks presented versus actors and actresses dressed up and portrayed as freaks. Therefore, as a result, MGM removed the movie from public display until the 1960’s due to the negative remarks that they received from the general public.26 In the face of all of these controversies and even the confusion that this movie provokes, both Joan Hawkins and Rachel Adams attempt to analyze and critique this film in order to show the importance that can be found within the film.
In Joan Hawkins’ essay “’One of Us’: Tod Browning’s Freaks”, she views Browning’s movie as contradictory and even offensive towards freaks. Hawkin’s goes about presenting her opinion by looking at Browning’s set up of the movie. In the first section, Browning attempts “normalize the freaks”.27 He shows the freaks conversing and doing normal things such as eating and joking. In fact, it is during the first part of the film that we are introduced to Hans, who has a crush on Cleopatra, a beautiful trapeze artist. As a result, it is easy to feel sympathetic towards Hans as he tries to sort out his manly feelings towards Cleo. Also, another area in which Browning plays on the audience’s sympathies is when the groundsperson, Jean, and his boss shoo away the freaks, who are dancing around and playing. Then, Madame Tetralini boldly asks them to show mercy to her circus children. By presenting them as children playing and dancing around, he makes the audience sympathetic towards the freaks.
At the same time, if these scenes are re-examined from a different angle, they seem less sympathetic and more distasteful in the representation of the freaks. When examining the freaks doing normal things such as eating and joking, the camera angle is totally and completely centered on the freak. If there are normal people talking to the freaks, the camera does not show them at all; instead, it focuses on whatever the freak is doing, therefore isolating the freak from the scene and making the scene more like a mini freak show. Secondly, even within the opening moments of the budding romance between Hans and Cleo, we notice that although Hans, a bourgeois German midget, has masculine feelings for Cleo, a beautiful big person, Cleo only wishes to use Hans for comedic purposes. Therefore, this budding romance is used more within the movie to show the smallness and childlikeness of Hans as opposed to showing his masculinity despite his shortness. Finally, in the first scene, we see Madame Tetralini call the playing freaks her children, even though we can see that some of them definitely are not children or child-like. This is further supported when we see the freaks acting in a rather spooky way, as they slither across the ground and chase after Cleo for trying to hurt Hans, especially since Hans was “one of them”.
All together, Hawkins points out that this film is rather troubling to watch “because of its internal demonization of the freaks and because of the demands it makes on the audience”28 in regards to being sympathetic towards Hans because of the mistreatment that he endures from Cleo and the sympathy that we later feel towards Cleo as the freaks hunt her down and transform her into a mutated chicken-shaped freak.
On the other hand, Rachel Adams’ Sideshow U.S.A. examines Tod Browning’s freaks from a different angle. Instead of the movie being “internally demonizing”, she sees it as a very thought-provoking film especially since “it reanimates the figure of the freak and the culture of the freak show for a new generation of American audiences”29 therefore causing them to examine these issues once more. In Adams’ view, Browning uses the film to expose the audience to the freaks and make them aware that they do exist. In addition, the film serves less to ostracize the freaks than to make the general public more aware of their feelings and thoughts. Also, she believes that Browning was doing something rather phenomenal by making a film this controversial, which pushed the audience to think in different ways, especially during that time period.
Joan Hawkins’ review of Freaks than is superior Adams’ review. Instead of the film forcing the audience to think in different and better ways, it reinforces some of the differences between us and the freak especially by reinstating the code of the freaks. In addition, the movie draws the audience less towards sympathy and more towards confusion in regards to characterizing the freak as one to be sympathized with or feared. For this reason, I can understand why the movie was banned in the 1930’s and was considered highly controversial.
As decades have past, the controversy concerning the movie, Freaks, and the characterization of freakery within society and American media has seemingly died down, but in truth, it can be argued that freakery has not died down. Instead, the standards that promote freakery are penetrating our society in different modes that are more “acceptable” like American media and even through a very well-known doll, the Barbie doll.
The Barbie doll, who according to her website, is described as a “Fashion Star” and as “Super Fun & Funky”30 and who owns the best of the best has been owned and/or desired by little girls all over the world. To a little girl, she is beautiful and popular, and she epitomizes all that they wish to be. However, when one looks at the history of this “beautiful” doll, it is interesting to see that the Barbie doll was based on a German pin up doll known as the Lilli doll. In fact, the Lilli doll was not even made for children instead “she was a pornographic caricature, a gag for men.”31 Despite the doll’s colorful background, when Ruth Handler, the Barbie doll’s creator, first saw the Lilli doll, she was captured by the voluptuous figure and wanted to make an American doll that truly depicted the womanly figure versus the common baby dolls that were popular during the 1950’s. As a result of Handler’s dream, the entrance of the Barbie doll into the public forum during the 1959 American Toy Fair in New York City issued not only a new era in dolls but also a new era of American society.
The Barbie doll flaunts her sexuality and beauty through her designer clothing and independence, yet this doll, once considered revolutionary has now become an instrument that not only builds an unattainable stereotype in the eyes of little girls but has also become an instrument to enfreak women all over the world. Within this section, I will further examine the origin and background of the Barbie doll, how the Barbie doll enfreaks women, and how the Barbie doll is an ethnic and even more importantly a cultural enfreakment.
Even before the discovery of the Lilli doll, Ruth Handler and Mattel had been trying to create a doll with a more womanly figure. When Ruth first encountered the Lilli doll during a family vacation in Switzerland, she “didn’t then know who Lilli was or even that its name was Lilli.”32 All she saw was “an adult-shape body that [she] had been trying to describe for years and [their] guys said couldn’t be done.”33 Inspired by watching her daughter, Barbara, play, Ruth wanted to create a doll that reflected the adult world, a doll that could carry three-dimensional conversations and could be considered a real person. Although male designers viewed Ruth’s ideas to be impossible, Ruth quips that they were probably “all horrified by the thought of wanting to make a doll with breasts.”34 Due to these obstacles in the U.S., in 1957, Ruth and her husband, Elliot, sent a man named Jack Ryan, a former electrical engineer and a former husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor, to Japan to see if he could get the Lilli doll copied by a Japanese company. Fortunately, with the help of KBK, a Tokyo-based novelty maker, the Lilli doll was refined and molded into what we know as the Barbie doll. In addition to the creation of the Barbie doll’s soft vinyl figure and appealing physical attributes, the Handlers hired a fashion designer to coordinate Barbie’s wardrobe.35
Looking at the formative process of the Barbie doll, it is easy to see how the Barbie doll captured the attention of little girls. The Barbie doll, which was originally marketed as a fashion model, captures the dreams of little girls and turns them into a believable reality. Little girls of any socioeconomic status can play imaginary games in which they are models also or going on an every day adventure in the glitzy, glamorous life of Barbie. In addition, little girls of other countries can pretend that they have Barbie’s blonde hair and blue eyes along with her chic and amazingly stylish wardrobe.
After Barbie’s take off after the American Toy Fair, she became more and more popular, but she also changed based on different social issues. In 1963, the Barbie doll seems to espouse or even support Helen Gurley Brown’s best-selling book, Sex and the Single Girl, seen in changes within both her wardrobe and accessories. For example, Brown states that “when a man thinks of a single woman, he pictures her alone in her apartment, smooth legs sheathed in beige silk pants, lying tantalizingly among dozens of satin cushions, trying to read but not very successfully, for he is in that room—filling her thoughts, her dreams, her life.”36 It is even more interesting that in her “Dinner at Eight” outfit, Barbie is “lying tantalizingly among the printed cushions on her pasteboard divan, smooth legs sheathed in apricot silk pants.”37 Therefore, the Barbie doll is a covert radical pushing forth viewpoints, and as further changes occur within society, we see Barbie become more career-oriented depicted as an astronaut, a doctor, etc. In addition, the Black, Chicana, Native American, and Hispanic Barbie are ushered in to promote diversity and make a Barbie doll that appeals to everyone regardless of their nationality or color.
In this sense, the Barbie doll was revolutionary. No other doll has been able to sustain high sales and make approximately 1 to 2 billion dollars a year. In fact, it has been estimated that throughout the world two Barbie dolls are sold every second. In addition the Barbie doll was not just a doll; it was and is the epitome of popular culture. As cultural views changed, the Barbie doll and what it represented changed within society. Just as it has been argued that the Lilli doll represents “vanquished Aryan, gold digging [their] way back to society”38 in Germany, the Barbie doll represents the ideals being espoused and issues being addressed within American society.
Although the Barbie doll was considered revolutionary when it first entered the public forum, over recent years, it can also be seen as an enfreakment of women all over the world due to the doll’s large bust, wide hips, and tiny waist. Constructed on these fantastical proportions, if the Barbie doll was scaled to real, human proportions, she would be 39”-18”-33”. In a study done by Norton, et al., their analysis showed the “exceptionally unrealistic body proportions of Barbie, particularly in regions which are of most concern to women: waist, hips, waist-hip, and chest-waist ratios.”39 In addition, they noted that the possibility of the average body measurements that they noted for the Barbie doll is a probability less than 1 in 100,000.40
In fact, the Barbie doll, which was once considered revolutionary for its depiction of a womanly figure, is actually an enfreakment of the womanly figure. The Barbie doll, like its original counterpart, the Lilli doll, looks more like a male’s fantastical depiction of the female body with her top-heavy body and teeny tiny waist. As little girls, many women can probably recall a time in which they wished that Barbie was a real girl or that they were just like Barbie. In essence, making this enfreakment of the female body, a standard, in which little girls all over the world, compare themselves to. Although most women grow up and realize the unlikelihood of their being like Barbie, others like Cindy Jackson have had extensive plastic surgery so that they can look as closely to Barbie as possible. In order to reach this unattainable womanly ideal, Cindy Jackson has had at least twenty surgeries and has molded her life in such a way that it would reflect the activities and hobbies that Barbie could possibly have if she were a real human being.41
Cindy Jackson and others, who undergo plastic surgery to meet this unattainable female standard, raise this question: What is so intriguing about the Barbie doll that she is considered beautiful to our human perceptions? In a study done by Albert M. Magro, he attempts to answer this question by examining the primitive and no longer prevalent phenotypic, outward, traits versus the derived and more prevalent traits, which are currently considered attractive. In his paper, “Why Barbie Is Perceived as Beautiful”, Magro makes the argument that Barbie exhibits many of the derived evolutionary characteristics, which are considered more attractive, therefore “the Barbie doll shows us what we wish to be.”42 Like an idealistic dream, the Barbie doll represents a standard that is impossible to reach, yet despite the Barbie doll’s freakishly embellished womanly figure, it is still considered a fashionable icon representing popular culture. Though Barbie may be an excellent example of popular American culture, she is not an excellent example of racial and cultural acceptance. In fact, she is both a racial and a cultural enfreakment. Enthically, a major reason that Barbie is an enfreakment is due to her white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, which resemble the Aryan characteristics of the Lilli doll. Although alternative Barbie dolls have been made with different colored skins, these dolls did not bring in as many sales because the Barbie doll that is more publicized and receives the most accolades is the blonde hair, blue-eyed Barbie. In addition, one never sees a Barbie doll dealing with struggles predominant in other ethnic groups or even pre-dominant within our society. In the words of a little girl, Asia, interviewed by Elizabeth Chin in “Ethnically Correct Dolls: Toying with the Race Industry,” “they make her like a stereotype. When you think of Barbie you don’t think of fat Barbie…you don’t think of pregnant Barbie”43 instead people imagine a Barbie doll that is in a stable socioeconomic position and is perfect in all ways.
As a result of the incredible popularity of the white Barbie doll and superheroes, a group named OLMEC created the Sun-Man superhero, who is not only a darker color but, more importantly, is marketed as a cool superhero versus being an alternative to a white superhero.44 Therefore, the child’s interest in the super hero is not based on skin color but is based on the coolness and how relatable the product is. A possible reason for the lack of interest towards different colored dolls is that they are marketed to parents instead of to children. In other words, “these overt and covert references to the civil rights movement… appeal more to parents-or grandparents- than they do to kids themselves.”45
Lastly, Barbie dolls are cultural enfreakments because they espouse the ideas of American popular culture and, in turn, enfreaks little girls and women of other countries. Although the Barbie doll’s voluptuous curves, which are accented by designer clothing and form-fitting swimming suits is not considered a problem in our culture in other cultures, in which woman dress more modestly, the Barbie doll is considered a caricature of Western society and its lack of morals. The scantily clothed Barbie doll, who dresses enticingly to attract the attention of Ken, is considered immoral and unacceptable in some other cultures. In fact, an Islamic source referred to the Barbie doll as “a symbol of decadence to a perverted West,” and in addition, the source promoted a more acceptable doll known as the Razanne doll, which is covered from head to toe like a traditional Muslim would be.46 Another example of drastic efforts being made to counterbalance the influence of Barbie is the Iranian government’s banning of the Barbie doll and its introduction of Dara (male) and Sara (female) dolls, which were created in order to uphold Iranian traditional values, which the influx of American toys and products were undermining.47
Just as some cultures try to undermine and stop the influx of the Barbie doll and American media, there are also other cultures, in which women try to mold themselves to fit into the American idea of beauty, which Barbie represents. An interesting example of this is blepharoplasty, eye surgery, among Asians. Approximately 50 to 70% of Asians are born with monolids, and as a result, several Asian men and women have gotten eye surgery so that they can have a double lid. There is a lot of controversy concerning this procedure, a result of Asians comparing themselves to Westerners and finding themselves not as attractive. Not only do some Asians undergo eye surgery, but others also use whitening creams, leg lengtheners, or even try face shaping in order to look more attractive.48 Unfortunately, these ideas of what is and is not attractive are derived from traits that the Barbie doll embodies. In response to these trends, writer, David Mura, states “[This is] evidence of internalized racism. It really indicates something about the way in which Asians in America are indoctrinated by white standards of beauty. They feel less beautiful than those who fit the Caucasian standard of beauty. […] The power of the American media and American culture stretches all over the globe, and can cause people to devalue their own culture.”49
Mura’s statement encapsulates how the Barbie doll is a cultural enfreakment. By accenting values and outward traits that are “Western”, the Barbie doll enfreaks women from other cultures because they do not have these “attractive” characteristics therefore leading some women to take drastic measures in order to have these characteristics and leading other women and cultures to reject the Barbie doll because of the ideology surrounding it.
In addition, the Barbie doll enfreaks the American culture. One example is how men and women will come from other countries, sometimes having these stereotypes about Americans that are painted by American media and by American products such as the Barbie doll. However, when they see the reality behind the alluring American media, some are sorely disappointed to see that we do not have perfect “Ken and Barbie doll” bodies and do not live in gigantic mansions. Another example is how if a woman was to compare herself to the Barbie doll, she can never, naturally, resemble her. In some cases, this leads to low self esteem and feelings of being too fat or too ugly, and as a result, there are women, who acquire eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia due to images of extremely skinny, yet beautiful models and possibly due to dolls such as the Barbie doll.
Whether it is enfreaking American or other cultures, the Barbie doll, which was meant to revolutionize toys and society, has now become an emblem to enfreak women all over the world. This doll, which has held more than 80 careers during her lifetime, still seems to be an example of the coy, feminine Aryan woman, like the Lilli doll, who is most known for her voluptuous looks all over the world.
Through scrutinizing freakery in our world using the Barbie doll, a modern day example of freakery, using society’s ever-changing characterization and treatment of freaks, and by simple examining the response of several essayists to freakery and all that it represents, it is impossible to veil or even hide freakery’s palpable presence in our world, especially in America, both in the past and even today.
Notes
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