Sp5
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RE: Is Mattel trolling feminists to get free Barbie publicity
Time: In defense of Barbie, why she might be a feminist doll after all
Quote:It may be time for Barbie to get a whole new wardrobe and some fun new accessories: Aging Jilted Barbie, complete with stained bathrobe, bottle of red wine and copy of Eat, Pray, Love.
That’s because Barbie is being pushed out in favor of younger, sluttier dolls with bigger heads. First it was Bratz with their outrageously puffed-up lips, heavy makeup and feather boas. Now it’s Monster High dolls, who dress like prostitutes and have the dimensions of lollipops. Sales for Barbie were down 13% over the holiday quarter, the steepest drop in recent memory, especially when compared to last year’s 4% drop. And Mattel recently launched a new ad campaign that includes a Barbie spread in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (TIME and Sports Illustrated are both owned by Time Inc).
Barbie has always gotten flak for her too thin, too made-up look; she’s basically an effigy for everything feminists hate. But at least Barbie looks like an adult woman, which is more than can be said for the Monster High dolls. They have enormous heads and spaghetti legs attached to a prepubescent body clad in fishnets and dominatrix boots. Barbie might be too wasp-waisted for some people’s taste, but she doesn’t look like a baby hooker. I’d take an out-of-whack body image over sexualizing kids any day of the week. . . . . .
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| 02-15-2014 07:32 AM |
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Bad Hussar
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RE: Is Mattel trolling feminists to get free Barbie publicity
Absolutely on the money. It's so damn easy to troll feminists, and more importantly get your brand more exposure in the mainstream media when their hysterics attract the attention of said media. It's like free money. I like to call profiting from so called "politically correct" drivel "Reality Arbitrage". This is basically how it goes down:
1) You have a position based on reality. e.g. 95+% of young girls would like to play with a doll like Barbie and would respond positively to such a toy.
2) You have a "political" position that doesn't accept reality, mainly because it hurts the feelings of those who have failed to achieve mainstream success, or achieved it at one point but have now lost it. e.g. Feminists are opposed to dolls like Barbies because they themselves are usually quite unattractive, or perhaps were once attractive but the passage of time has changed the amount of attention they get. Seeing images of attractive women, whether real or plastic intensely annoys and depresses them because it reveals their lack of power in this critical domain.
3) The forces of political correctness wield disproportional influence in media (for a variety of reasons) and try to create a image of a world that is more like their politically correct creation than objective reality. Some of society tend to follow the media and so lean this way, at least in public. eg. Some media outlets no doubt ran critical stories about Mattell after this release.
4) Most people in their day to day practical lives are forced to confront and act in accordance with reality, not PC. This provides opportunities for companies to fill the gap with reality based products, like Barbies. Since the forces of PC in some of the media like to believe that their world is the real one they act as if they are "shocked" when reality based products are offered to the public. It is at this point that the major benefit of PC reveals itself. A company simply has to break the PC rules slightly and wait for unseen forces to essentially act on their behalf, without remuneration, in attracting publicity to their product. e.g. Mattel simply continue to offer Barbie as always, and throw in something about being unapologetic about it. Instantly probably $100,000+ in free money (publicity).
As and aside: It's no use trolling the "Manosphere" for free money in this way since there is very little or none to find there since it isn't (positively) associated with mainstream media currently.
(This post was last modified: 02-17-2014 10:57 AM by Bad Hussar.)
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| 02-17-2014 10:55 AM |
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