Sugar and spice and torturing Barbie By JILL LAWLESS Monday, December 19, 2005 Associated Press
London — Barbie, beware. The iconic plastic doll suffers mutilation and "torture" at the hands of some young girls, according to research published Monday by British academics.
"The girls we spoke to see Barbie-torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a ‘cool' activity in contrast to other forms of play with the doll," said Agnes Nairn, one of the University of Bath researchers.
"The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving."
Researchers from the university's marketing and psychology departments questioned 100 primary school children about their attitudes to a range of products as part of a study on branding.
They found that Barbie provoked the strongest reaction, with youngsters reporting "rejection, hatred and violence," Ms. Nairn said.
"The meaning of ‘Barbie' went beyond an expressed antipathy; actual physical violence and torture toward the doll was repeatedly reported, quite gleefully, across age, school and gender."
While boys often expressed nostalgia and affection toward Action Man, the British equivalent of GI Joe, renouncing Barbie appeared to be a rite of passage for many girls.
"The most readily expressed reason for rejecting Barbie was that she was babyish, and girls saw her as representing their younger childhood out of which they felt they had now grown," Ms. Nairn said.
"It's as though disavowing Barbie is a rite of passage and a rejection of their past."
She said many of the girls saw Barbie as an inanimate object rather than a treasured toy, so the violence directed at the doll was not unduly alarming.
"Whilst, for an adult, the delight the child felt in breaking, mutilating and torturing their dolls is deeply disturbing, from the child's point of view, they were simply being imaginative in disposing of an excessive commodity in the same way as one might crush cans for recycling," she said.
Manufacturer Mattel, which sells 94 million Barbies a year worldwide, said the doll remains the "No. 1 fashion doll brand."
In a statement, Mattel U.K. said that despite the findings of "this very small group of children, we know that there are millions of girls in the U.K. and across the world that love and enjoy playing with Barbie and will continue to do so in the future."
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