Barbie embodies unreal image
I never wanted to look like
Barbie.
Her impossibly perfect body,
bubble-like head, and vacuous min<
never served as my role models. As
it turned out, that’s a good thing.
A new Yale study shows it woult
be near impossible for any woman
to have Barbie’s proportions.
According to the researcher, an
“average” woman would have to be
more than seven feet tall, add six
inches to her bust, detract six from
her waist, and widen her hips
significantly. As the study alluded,
such a woman would “look more
like a freak than a fox.”
The Barbie study is just one in a
long series of articles describing
society’s influence on a woman’s
physical appearance. Beginning
with media critics in the 1970s,
reports have indicted advertisers,
toy manufacturers, and fashion
magazines for women’s low self
confidence.
I’m not one to play the blame
game. Women need to take respon
sibility for how they feel about
themselves. But at the same time,
they need positive role models to
maintain any confidence they build.
From a young age, we’ve been
told to act like ladies, cross our
legs, and do what we can to
attract men. It’s tempting to shake
this ideal off, but it refuses to go
away.
We are constantly confronted
with Kate Moss and the “waif
look,” rail-thin models purring over
ice cream in television ads, and
aerobics videos with instructors
who tell us all our problems can be
solved if only we spent all day
exercising like they do.
And all the while, the rate of
young women with eating disorders
continues to rise.
Women don’t just want to be
good-looking, they want to be
smart. They want to succeed, and
as a sex we are becoming increas
ingly professional. One woman
shown in a televised Halloween
parade wore a suit and, on her
Krista Sch waiting
7 was lucky. Instead of
playing with Barbie I
read about Nancy Drew
— another woman who
was always perfectly
dressed — and dreamed
of carrying on Amelia
Earhart’s legacy. ”
head, a sheet of Plexiglas. When
asked what her costume meant, she
smiled and said she was dressed as
a female executive breaking
through the glass ceiling.
But no matter how far the
Virginia Slims ads say we’ve come,
we still have a long way to go. Too
many women can’t showcase their
talents because they are first judged
and dismissed on the basis of their
appearance. As in advertising,
packaging is everything.
Even if we don’t want to be
Barbie, too many young women
grew up with the impossibly
molded doll as their ideal. I’ve
never seen a doll which looked like
she’d had a bad hair day or whose
clothes were less than perfect. And
they certainly don’t have an ounce
of extra flesh or imperfect skin.
Manufacturers ask who would
buy such a doll. A recent episode of
“The Simpsons” featured Lisa
teaming up with a former model to
create a doll for the average girl.
Not surprisingly, a flood of little
girls continued to buy the best
selling Barbie look-alike with the
long eyelashes and crinolined dress.
The show concluded with only
one child buying the new doll.
While .toy stores consider the sales
a failure, Lisa feels satisfied that at
least one person accepted her idea.
In the real world, there are few
people willing to take such chances
in the billion-dollar toy industry.
But in order to get beyond the
Barbie mentality, it’s going to take
their cooperation and that of
advertisers.
But if a doll grounded in reality
would be so unpopular, why is
Cathy Guisewite’s comic strip
“Cathy” so widely read? Here we
have a woman who staples her skirt
when her hem falls apart, gains and
loses weight like a yo-yo, and has
relationship problems.
I never realized why I like the
cartoon so much. Now I think I do.
I was lucky. Instead of playing
with Barbie I read about Nancy
Drew — another woman who was
always perfectly dressed — and
dreamed of carrying on Amelia
Earhart’s legacy. But even I haven’t
escaped the pressure of looking
perfect. To this day, I am self
conscious of every piece of food I
put in my mouth and how it might
affect me.
Such behavior can’t be neatly
categorized as either anorexia or
bulimia. If it has to be called
something, call it food obsession.
It’s subtle, scary, and very common.
For once, I’d like to pick up a
french fry and pot worry about
calories and fat.
To give Barbie credit, maybe she
doesn’t have time to eat between
her newfound career and Ken. But I
still can’t help wishing that
America’s best-selling doll had a
realistic figure.
Sc hwartlng Is a graduate student in broad
cast journalism and a Dally Nebraskan col
umnist
Milkmen era comes to an end
All this talk about dropping acid
for Jesus has scared me into
inflating something trivial out of
proportion; what a shock to my two
faithful readers. I promise to resume
my role as a raving paranoid next
week.
You gotta blow up the things you
don’t understand.
An era ended this Tuesday; an
era of historical significance
dwarfing ages of bronze or iron.
This, of course, was 1983-1995 —
The Milk Age.
Many of you didn’t know the
Dead Milkmen, blissfully unaware
that the modem day musical
messiahs were walking among us,
and that’s fine. They didn’t have
that pretentious, factory made,
blander than tapioca at a Better
Than Ezra concert quality that we
look for in our music — so a lack of
mainstream embracement was to be
expected.
Here’s a quarter, go call the
PMRC.
They worked with the swift and
sure hand of Michaelangelo,
undertaking difficult subject matter
such as “Smoking Banana Peels.”
Joe Jack Talcum and Rodney
Amadaeous Anonymous were the
modem day Simon and Garfunkel;
when they sang “gonna beat my
wife, gonna smack her with a lead
pipe”, you knew they meant it from
the bowels of their soul with a
warm fuzzy in their hearts. They
explained the essence of the world
with three words: Life Is Shit.
Trouble is, now they’re gone,
and I only have two fingers left to
eat. God, I hate narratives.
The year is 1992 and the before
mentioned second coming is
coming to Lincoln. Omaha boys
hop into the blue torpedo and in a
matter of moments are under the
watchful gaze of some guy sowing
his oats atop a great and mighty
phallus. Over Big Classics, we spy
them entering the Union. Processed
chicken and seal flesh still dripping
from our mouths, we Flo Jo our way
towards them, screaming things like
Aaron McKain
“Yes, ” we collectively
murmur; “nothing
impresses someone more
than petty larceny. ”
“Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, it’s
the @#%&$!! Dead Milkmen!” The
Milkmen, at this point, are clearly
not amused.
Cat and mouse continues.
Nicholson bellows, “Danny Boy!”
as our diminutive, hormone
drenched minds push us forward,
hoping to comer our prey in the
catacombs of the hedge maze.
We trap them upstairs. Like most
16 years olds, we have absolutely
nothing to say, our tongues becom
ing blocks of wood. Reluctantly,
they do the talking. We get to
breathe in a few moments of
unfiltered brilliance targeted only
towards us. They explain that
Florida is the Penis of North
America; I told you they were
prophets.
(The water breaks. A seizure of
eye contact shatters the crystalline
bond. You realize that the voices
who have talked to you through a
box in your room since the sixth
grade are really just people. People
who have to pay the rent, people
who serve you coffee, people who
get arrested for traffic violations —
people who don’t like being
stalked.)
Never trust a junkie. Our thirsts
unsatiated, we press onward for an
additional fix. We find it in their
tour van’s licence plate. “Yes,” we
collectively murmur, “nothing
impresses someone more than petty
larceny.” We hold the carcass over
our heads and race to the village to
display our kill.
Fast forward. We vidi the
Milkmen one year later at the
Raunch Bowl, oh my brothers. My
spine is on the verge of snapping;
the back of my skull is plastered to
my legs, overburdened with guilt.
“Do you have rickets, my son?” one ,
of God’s chosen inquires.
The tears well in my Lazarian
eyes, the confession comes oozing
out. “Please O’ Great Divine One,
have pity on your miserable subject.
We took the plates from your
majestic chariot of happiness.”
Sadly, it’s takes less than a
second for comprehension to come
steaming out of their faces, thus
cementing our guilt. “You! We got
pulled over in Florida! They
ransacked our van for drugs! Our
tour had just started, we couldn’t
get new plates, we were endlessly
hassled by the highway patrol! A .f,
nightmare! An absolute f—ing [/
nightmare! Why? Why? Why? I
I felt as though my eyes had
been touched by Christ.
(AP) In 1993, die Dead Milk
men, still recovering from harass
ments suffered during their 1992
Soul Rotation tour, release the
groundbreaking album, “Not
Richard, But Dick”. The album
contains a song with the ominous
title “The Infant of Prague Custom
ized My Van”; ominous because the
song has nothing to do with infants,
Prague, customization, vans, the, of,
or my.
And a ray of sunshine hits my /
face as I realize that we are as
fondly entrenched in their memo
ries as an open casket funeral.
“Life is shit.”
The Dead Milkmen, 1983-1995.
McKaln is a undeclared sophomore and a —
Daily Nebraskan columnist
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