Week 8

 Kinky: One Afternoon When Barbie Wanted To Join The Military= I picked this story form Kinky because it appeared to be the most masculine choice, which I assumed would be more interesting for me than the other choices.

“GI Joe, seeing their plan was a mistake, asked her to return his clothes, making Barbie promise not to tell anyone. As she slipped back into her classic baby blue one piece swimsuit, she realized this would be her second secret. She couldn’t tell about the time she posed nude for Hustler.”

I thought this quote was funny because Barbie decides to join the Military and since Mattel says that she cannot get a military outfit, she is forced to borrow GI Joe’s. After realizing she cannot harm any opposing enemies, she gives up. It is a funny story and has color throughout it with examples that she posed for Hustler and that Barbie was grateful for Ken’s flatfeet. This relates to the first paragraph in Chapter 3 of Barbie’s Queer Accessories, “Barbie has acquired many new adult accessories in recent years. A few have actually “played Barbie” by playing Barbie, either for love, like Cynthia Jackson, or for money, like Lori, form southern Indiana, who had little use for Barbie until the early 1980’s, when she wound up supplementing her college money by impersonating Barbie for Mattel in local shopping-mall fashion shows…. They didn’t want a girl who looked great in a Barbie outfit, but when she took it off, the things that she liked to wear were short shorts and a tank top and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.” I believe this relates to my reading from Kinky because it talks about the changes in Barbie’s accessories. When Barbie wants to join the military, she is looking for a different image through different styles of clothing. She didn’t want to look like her usual self. This quote speaks out against the Barbie norms. 

Reading Reaction #2

Body Outlaws Intimate Enemies

• “I sure wish I had your problem,- it only shows how our culture screws us every day. We’re taught that fat is bad, so thin is best, regardless of the sacrifice.”
• I chose this quote because it is true, if someone has a problem or illness that makes them thin, other people look at it as a great diet. This is what is wrong with the outlook on fat and thin, not everyone is going to look the same. But a food allergy that is envied is the worst thing yet.
•  “My body and my spirit continuously struggle. It seems one must lose for the other to win: It’s either the freedom to go to that late, smoky party or the freedom to expand my lungs in the morning. It’s a weird life, but it’s life and I’m still thankful for it.”
• I like her upbeat attitude towards her life that to us would see like a burden but she realizes she has to deal with it in her own way. She has to make decisions between living life and saving her life, but she still finds a way to keep her spirit up in the mist of all the difficulties.

 

Mondo Barbie Playing with Barbie

• “Her real attraction was wardrobe, the minute perfections of her clothes like adulthood stitched diminutive, fur collars, satin linings, lace.”
• This quote explains how just like Barbie, her accessories are more adult appropriate than children. The reading was strange but it explains the way that playing with Barbie was all about imagination. The end brings it all together as she says, “She fits again right in my hand – and I’m King Kong.”

Reading Reaction

Mondo Barbie: Voodoo Silences: “I run faster than my heart can drum, up the stairs, past the statue of Jennifer, into my room. Barricade the door with everything I own till Mom comes home.” 

• I chose this quote because it reminds of all the times I was in trouble with my dad and I would run and think that everything would be fine once my mom could calm him down. It is funny that kids do the same things and think in the same ways. Girls probably have the opposite effect that they run from mothers and wait for their dads, but I just liked that way the writer told it.

 Barbie Ferrari: “Turning in slow motion in the air above the banister, for whom ideas of gender and marketplace are nothings less than nothing. It’s the car she was born for. It’s Barbie you mourn for.”

• I chose this quote because the writer is trying to characterize the Barbie car as gender neutral. The car was made for Barbie and it goes with her, but it is funny that boys probably wouldn’t have a problem playing with the Barbie car because of the name of the brand.

 Body Outlaws: The Elephant and the ice cream: emotions, politics and food: “I realized that I had been chasing after some male fantasy that never provided me with happiness, no matter how thin I was. I realized that feeling beautiful was about self-acceptance, not fitting into a certain pair of jeans. It is ironic that I came to love myself most and feel most beautiful only when I stopped trying to ‘be beautiful.’”

• This quote perfectly sets an example of how women think that they need to be thin to be beautiful and get male attention, but women should choose to diet and exercise if it is for their happiness. There will always be men that don’t like the stick thin girls and girls need to realize that. But this quote explains the message that women should follow, to be happy with themselves and not worry about things for men.

 Memoirs of a (sorta) ex-shaver: “Beginning in the 1920’s, women’s legs and underarms had to be smooth and free of body hair; the torso had to be svelte; and the breasts were supposed to be small and firm.”

• I chose this quote because it relates to our class discussion perfectly. We have talked about women issues such as these that are stereotypical of what a woman is supposed to be like. Facial hair, leg hair or armpit hair are considered male traits. So women are supposed to be smooth in all of those body areas.

 “The word was that college years were a time to get all the nose rings, goatees, crimson hair and bottomed-out Birkenstocks out of your system, to quick-get-it-over-with and dabble in bisexuality and ménages a trois (or at least talk about it), because you’d probably never get another go.”

• I chose this quote because it is funny what she thinks college will be like and what those years of individuality mean. She thinks of it as a freeing time to try anything and everything to discover who she really is. It is a good quote from the perspective of a young girl.