After previously posting about gender, I could not help but think about race. Any variety in the two categories seemed almost non-existent in Barbie World. What caught me the most off guard was the over-abundance of Caucasian girls walking around the Shop-A-Mallic shopping center. Throughout my excursions, I came across plenty of white females who I friended and chatted with. But this became boring, so I began the journey to find some African and Asian Barbies. It is clear that Barbie supports the hegemonic system of society because of the automatic settings of Barbie Girl, the lack of cultural diversity and the acceptance that this creates among the participants of virtual Barbie. I believe that Barbie World most represents Gramsci’s definition of hegemony because of the popularity surrounding Barbie and the power that this allows them to hold when it comes to persuading others to believe their ideas are accepted and are the norm.
As I said in my gender post, when I entered virtual Barbie I had the option to change my appearance. I was automatically set as white and blonde. There were 4 shades of white that I could have been, or chosen one of the 2 darker tones. None of the colors were very accurate, unless I was either pale white or a light-skinned African American. I was shocked and a little offended, even though I am white, that I was set as the “typical-looking” person. How is each person supposed to be themselves in the virtual world when they set your doll in such a generic way? There is no way to change face or feature shape, which is a major part in the distinction between races. Simply changing color is not an accurate way to portray someone from any race. This is part of the hegemony of society- the dominant group is Caucasian, therefore each person is expected to alter their appearance to look more like the power group.
On my journey to find some cultural diversity in the virtual world, I was disappointed. I found one African American Barbie, and when I went to talk to her and be her friend I found out that she was fake.. What the heck! I felt a little embarrassed that I tried to have a conversation with someone who was not responding back, but then I realized that she was permanently placed in Barbie Girl just to give out information to other dolls when they’re not sure what to do. So now I am irritated, because I suppose Barbie has assumed that they have fulfilled their cultural responsibility by placing one black girl in the game, not to mention she was painting a wall. A little stereotypical for a black person to be spray painting a brick wall, don’t you think?
As girls scurry through Barbie World, shopping and getting glammed up, I can’t help but wonder if any of these Caucasian dolls are actually young girls of another race who are afraid to share who they really are, for fear of being excluded. I suppose that is the same way that I felt when joining Barbie Girl, and the same reason I chose to wear a skirt- I was fearful of not being accepted. I have realized that the hegemonic system of society is completely dominating, and it is clearly portrayed through the minor exposure anyone has to a virtual world. If it is that powerful for me to acknowledge right away through this experience, I think about how larger media outlets can affect society. Do you think that my virtual experience, which has a complete lack of cultural diversity, is an accurate portrayal of most media outlets, or is Barbie just really more popular to Caucasian females in general?
Do you think that my virtual experience, which has a complete lack of cultural diversity, is an accurate portrayal of most media outlets, or is Barbie just really more popular to Caucasian females in general?
ReplyDeleteHi Lindsey!
I think that this is a though question to answer because I think that every media outlet has a target audience and also "media outlet" is a pretty broad term and hard to define. I think each media outlet will have a target audience. For example, Barbie Worlds target audience is particularly young Caucasian girls. When we think of Barbie we will think of the white Barbie doll with blonde hair and blue eyes, we do not think of the ethnic or African American Barbies. I think it is really hard to generalize media outlets and if they lack cultural diversity or if each media outlet just has their own particular target audience. I think this is a great question and is hard to answer. I think this can also be incorporated into how our mediums and mainstream media are so flawed in America. Our media outlets reinforce stereotypes (mostly negative) about different ethnicities and their particular cultures. I do think that Barbie World should incorporate more cultural diversity but like I said earlier the Barbie industry's main target audience are probably young Caucasian females and that is who consumes their products. I would like it if more cultural diversity was being incorporated into our media outlets I think it would do a lot for our country and culture.
Wow, Lindsey! These are some very thoughtful questions that truly get down to the root of this notion of playing around with identity, yet doing so in a world that has been saturated in dominant ideologies that have subsequently limited us to playing around with identity under "their" control. Great question!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this great post, Lindsey!
ReplyDeleteI think that this does accurately portray how media outlets work in that white is - quite literally - the default.
This is how I think media treat race:
Whiteness is taken for granted as a non-race, a neutral place to start, without a culture and universally accepted as "normal." If media feature white people, its taken for granted that the people in the ad/show/article/commercial/network/etc. are relatable to people of all races; if it features people of a particular race or races, it is suddenly a specialized market.
Given the above perspective I start from, yes, BarbieGirls.com fits the media norm.
By perpetuating these myths about whiteness, BarbieGirls and other media socialize the rest of us to think (and continue to think) of White as a non-race, as a meaningless default. It makes White culture really hard for those of us in it to see and white supremacy/hegemony even harder to see.
In the sense that I don't think the individual can be extricated from the system in which their socialized, I want to note that I don't think the people who make the site or produce other media perpetuate this white supremecist ideology consciously or intentionally - it simply relates back to what we read/discussed about hegemony that the ruling class unconsciously naturalize their own power/privilege.