The typical American girl plays
with Barbie dolls from the beginning of her childhood. Since 1959, Barbie dolls
have been a staple in the every American girl’s toy box. Young girls sit around
miniature tables and attend imaginary tea parties with Barbie as their guest of
honor. They brush her long platinum blonde hair and dress her in the latest
fashion. Barbie is perfect. She is tall, has long tan plastic legs, a miniscule
waist, huge breasts, and flashes her plastic smile at the world. She possesses unobtainable
measurements, yet serves as a role model for young girls everywhere. Barbie’s impossible
standards are damaging to the developing mind of a young girl. Girls strive to
achieve this unobtainable perfection that they see in Barbie, and this is an
impossible task.
Last year, Nickolay Lamm developed an
alternative take on the typical Barbie doll. She’s called Lammily. Lammily was
created by taking the average weight and measurements of an American 19 year
old teenager. The Lammily doll sets more realistic beauty standards for young girls.
She has toned-down makeup, brown hair, and looks fit and strong (WIKIPEDIA).
She is marketed by the slogan, “Average is Beautiful.” The company takes this
slogan seriously. Lammily’s clothing is less extravagant and appears to look like
the clothing of the average American. There is even a sticker pack that you can
purchase which contains stretch marks, freckles, acne, moles, scars, and casts
to place on your doll. The developers made Lammily into the “normal Barbie.”
She represents real girls in the real world.
The “normal Barbie” promotes
self-confidence by representing real life. Real girls have muscle, scrapes, and
bruises. Real girls wear comfy clothing and get acne. Becoming a Barbie is an unrealistic
expectation imposed on young girls who look up to this flawless figure and
desire to have a tiny waist like she does. The Lammily doll is a step in the
right direction for establishing self-confidence at a young age by providing an
alternative role model for girls to follow because average is beautiful too.
What an intriguing idea. We all know that in a sense beautiful is boring, at least a certain conventional notion of beauty. What makes real people interesting is their flaws, their imperfections. Perhaps the problem with other attempts to counteract unrealistic beauty standards was that the alternatives were not imperfect enough. With the ability to actually transform imperfections into part of the play, maybe this alternative has finally hit not the right formula?
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