Customer Reviews

Barbie Unbound: A Parody of the Barbie Obsession

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Whether you enjoyed Barbies as a child or not, Strohmeyer's text will have you laughing out loud in a room full of strangers. A combination of feminism, politics, and plastic toys may sound odd, but Strohmeyer pulls it together in a very entertaining fashion (no pun intended).

Barbie Unboud: A Parody of the Barbie Obsession, is the actual name of the book. In it, Barbie is placed in 40 contemporary and historical situations - Barbie d'Arc, PMS Barbie, Barbie at the Salem Witch Trials, Teenage Pregnant Barbie, etc. The photos are great and the text, which is written as a tongue-in-cheek play guide, is really biting. Great satire on Barbie, her always cheerful smile, that impossible body, all those accessories and the ridiculous idea that all women will grow up pink, pretty and perky. Buy it, it's what you've been waiting for.

So your child has Dr. Barbie, Dentist Barbie, Anthropologist Barbie and Equestrian Barbie, but does she have PMS Barbie, and Junkie Barbie? Collecting her is great, but sometimes that perfect plastic body can get annoying and you dream about her being "one of us". Well, the author has put your imagination to words and pictures for everyone to enjoy! She keeps you laughing and saying "Now that's one doll I have to get!"

Hilarious! Sara Strohmeyer has taken satire to a new level. By subverting the fictious doll into something unthinkable (a REAL woman) we understand the dialectical struggle between the dolls already accepted image as a sexist and mysoginst doll and what would happen if she thought about and dealt with real issues. Strohmeyer's parodies are intelligent and insightful as we should question the garbage that mainstream media i.e. "Cosmopollution Magazine" throws up in the face of consumeritis.

Sarah Strohmeyer looks at Barbie and asks some questions. Most of them are to do with the implausibility of Barbie, but what if she was real, what are some of the issues she'd have to face. Is Barbie a healthy or an unhealthy image and why don't we have healthy female imagery and Role-Models in our culture. These are the Barbies that would never exist, because they would disturb the corporate mentality of Mattel.

In some places it's overdone but you can imagine that Strohmeyer getting angry at Barbie and her images and deciding that she was going to make fun of her rather than just rant a little and feel impotent.

Since I don't have a quarrel with Mattel's Barbie, I only found this book mildly amusing.

The best part of this cynical take off and put down on Barbie, are the photographs of the doll in various unusual settings and costumings--such as "Welfare Queen Barbie", and "Hot Flash Barbie", as well as some looks at historical Barbie's such as "Barbie Curie" and "Groovin' Gravity Gallileo Barbie", to name a few.

There are approximately 27 take-offs of different characters Barbie could be, along with an interview with Barbie, and an epilogue entitled "What if Barbie were one of us."

While I agree Barbie is thinner and leggier than a normal woman would be, I don't tend to take this very seriously. She is, after all, only a doll.

The invention of Barbie, unfortunately, came too late for me. I do think it good that Mattel has widened the scope of "careers" and "interests" for their Barbie doll.

I've never quite understood how popular icons such as Barbie become objects of venom. However, if Barbie is on that list for you, then you should greatly enjoy this book.

The book was a bit unclear to me in their layout for each of their Barbie subjects, but no less clear than is Barbie herself. As I've never understood why the doll keeps being re-created always with the name Barbie but with a different descriptive name infront of the Barbie.