Princess Barbie 101

What is your relationship to Barbie or any kind of children’s culture (like Disney?) 

How does Christiansen validate or challenge your views? 

Barbies! When I was a child, I loved to play with Barbie. I had the Barbie camper, the townhouse, the car, and as many Barbies as I could get my hands on when I was a child. Barbie was my hero when I was a child until she wasn't. Even though I didn't play with Barbies anymore in middle school, Barbie was still secretly part of my life. She was the idea that I held myself to daily. I wanted to look like her. She was pretty with blonde hair, blue eyes, the best clothes and the perfect body. All the "Kens" loved her. Middle school was not a time that I remember feeling confident in my looks, my clothes, or anything else for that matter. I was athletically built and loved to play sports. To make matters worse my brother was tall and thin with blonde hair. My mom would always tell the story that people thought I was the boy and he was the girl when we were toddlers because he was so cute. Unknowingly I was being influenced by my childhood enemy and best friend, Barbie, about how to look and act to be a beautiful girl.

When I was younger we did not have a TV until I was a little older so I did not watch a lot of Disney movies or cartoons. If we did watch Disney shows or go to the movies, it was mostly my parent's choice of what we were going to see at the movies. When we did go to the movies, I remember thinking most of the women were always pretty. Princess Leia was always beautiful and tough. Cinderella got to marry the prince even though she was poor. Snow White, even though she had black hair, was still not me. Was this the secret education that Christiansen was eluding to?

I was particularly drawn to a quote by one of Christiansen's students. "When we read children's books, we aren't just reading cute little stories, we are discovering the tools with which a young society is manipulated". The idea of "secret education" is suggested to go beyond just media and infiltrate our children's books too. These problems are not just in movies, cartoons, and characters but in books too. This problem is everywhere! Christiansen reminds us that the media colonizes our minds to think and believe what is shown on the screen. If you see something long enough then you live and believe it. The secret education that Christiansen described is a scary one. It doesn't just apply to my generation but to generations to come in the future.