Barbie marks generations with the search for unattainable beauty – 07/21/2023 – Equilíbrio

Flight attendant Natália Turri Facella, 37, has been in love with Barbie since she can remember, which led her to create and maintain a collection of around 50 dolls. Facella has already bought tickets for the film about the Mattel star that premiered this Thursday (20) in Brazilian cinemas.

She is looking forward to the film. She says, however, that the Barbie pattern was not always positive for her.

Brunette with brown eyes and hair, she did not identify with the doll. Her sister, on the other hand, blonde with green eyes, was called Barbie in childhood. Facella, by the way, became known as “Barbie’s sister”.

“Later, older, I identified this in therapy, which sought to be something that wasn’t mine”, she says.

Adults and children, whether male or female, were influenced by the physical form of the doll. Both Barbie and her partner Ken are criticized for their thin and muscular body, which for years has promoted an unattainable standard for many. For the new film, which aims to celebrate the complexity and diversity of the doll, experts recommend caution, since there is still Margot Robbie, who corresponds to the ideals of beauty perpetrated by the toy.

In the case of hairdresser and tiktoker Marcelo Lima, 37, known on social media as Marcello Bergmann, Barbie’s partner doll was always a reference. Baptized “Human Ken”, he used the toy as inspiration in aesthetic procedures. Before his transformation, he didn’t consider himself a beautiful person. He underwent bichectomy, rhinomodelation and alectomy to tune his nose. Skin whitening is also clear.

“Since I was a child I liked dolls and magazine cover models. And a lot of things still bother me, but I stopped doing them. [procedimentos] because money is short now”, he says.

The popularization of feminism and the struggle for racial and sexual diversity challenged the toy world. The white doll, with golden hair and light eyes, in addition to being thin, marked generations. Even the erotic origin of the toy, sold to adult men, did not prevent the rise of the product among children.

The new Barbie portrayed in the film is the projection of the woman who can have any profession, not just being a mother. The body types explored are 12, although the protagonist still celebrates the blonde and slender image.

Debates about new Barbie stereotypes, however, did not start as a result of American production. In 2020, professor and researcher Sheila dos Santos, from UFG (Federal University of Goiás), active in the area of ​​educational psychology, already discussed in an article “The Scams of the New Barbie Style.”

In the text, Santos states that the new image of the doll brought by the brand’s social networks still “advocates certain standards of beauty, conformist and sexist postures.”

Doctor Fábio Salzano, vice-coordinator of the Eating Disorders Program at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Hospital das Clínicas at USP (University of São Paulo), indicates that studies associate exposure to dolls in childhood and adolescence with a negative impact on body self-image.

“The measurements of dolls, if transposed to human beings, bring unrealistic measurements in terms of height, weight and waist and neck measurements, bringing discomfort to this exposure of unrealistic ideals”, says the doctor.

The search for such a standard of beauty can lead to image distortion, an issue that encourages excessive weight loss.

“A negative self-image is also associated with anxious and depressive symptoms. Parental supervision and care regarding ideal weight and body image guidelines is also essential for preventing body dissatisfaction”, says Salzano.

Wendell Uguetto, plastic surgeon at SBCP (Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery) and Hospital Albert Einstein, agrees that the problem with trying to look like a toy is that the product doesn’t bring human proportions.

“The patient wanting to become something close to Margot Robbie is not as bad as wanting to become Barbie. When the patient wants to be the doll, he has to cause alterations and dysfunctions in the body, they are surgeries that often cause sequelae.

The procedure to be followed by doctors in this case, according to Uguetto, is to advise on the impossibility of the intervention, which results in the refusal to perform the surgery. Depending on the situation, it is recommended to refer the patient to psychological counseling to first deal with the issues that led him there.