Infidel Barbie
Comments: 6
Maybe Mattel should come out with Sharia Barbie.
Saudi police outlaw Barbie
AP via The Sydney Morning HeraldSaudi Arabia’s religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining that the revealing clothes of the “Jewish” toy - already banned in the kingdom - were offensive to Islam.
The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as the religious police are officially known, lists the dolls on a section of its website devoted to items deemed offensive to the conservative Saudi interpretation of Islam. [No link to the site provided. -jh]
“Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful,” said a poster on the site.
I’m a bit confused: the story is headlined “Saudi police outlaw Barbie” but the first paragraph says that she’s “already banned in the kingdom.” Where’s the story?
Things like this don’t get published to keep stereotypical impressions of repressive Islamic regimes bubbling, do they? Surely not. (Not that I’m defending repressive Islamic regimes — I’d tend to agree with them when it comes to Barbie, although certainly not with the “Jewish” claptrap* — just trying to figure out why this becomes newsworthy when it does.)
* I don’t know if Ruth and Elliot Handler, Barbie’s creators (or purloiners more exactly) were Jewish or not (isn’t it entirely irrelevent?), but in her bok on Barbie, M. G. Lord writes: “Barbie was knocked off from the “Bild Lilli” doll, a lascivious plaything for adult men that was based on a postwar comic character in the Bild Zeitung, a downscale German newspaper similar to America’s National Enquirer. The doll, sold principally in tobacco shops, was marketed as a sort of three-dimensional pinup. In her cartoon incarnation, Lilli was not merely a doxie, she was a German doxie—an ice-blond, pixie-nosed specimen of an Aryan ideal—who may have known hardship during the war, but as long as there were men with checkbooks, was not going to suffer again.”
As an interesting aside, she also mentions that “The dolls were originally cast in Japan, making, I suppose, Barbie’s birthplace Tokyo.”
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Posted to Oh, the Humanity • 2003.09.10 (Wed) • 10:54
Comments
Posted by Trevor 2003.09.10, 18:56
The story’s in the fact that so many things are banned there that there are only so many things that the poor overworked religious police can chase at once. This week happens to be Let’s Get Barbie Week. If you think that the SMH’s portrayal of the Saudi state is part of a campaign to stereotype Islamic regimes, then check the relevant Amnesty International pages.
Posted by Derek Mackrell 2003.09.11, 10:09
I don’t want to in any way sound like I’m supporting Barbie banning (although I’m no fan), but this ‘news story’, which has been picked up everywhere from CNN to the Kansas City Star, has been around since at least May 15 this year. (a Google on “barbie dolls’ and ‘saudi arabia’- first link). So why is it suddenly news?
Posted by trotsky! 2003.09.14, 09:14
since we’re talking about barbie, just thought i’d interest you with razanne. i can’t recall from where i heard of razannes the first time.
at any rate, barbies are some of the most misogynic toys for young girls out on the market today (and especially considering her history, according to you).
while the zionist conspiracy theory is common to arab(s), according to my anthropologist professor who spent 10 years doing fieldwork in various arab states.
cheers!
Posted by Emily 2005.03.14, 09:08
When are adults going to learn that children have very different views of Barbie? When I was 3, playing with my Barbie, I wasn’t thinking about her large chest or tight clothes. I was thinking about how much trouble i’d get into if I cut her hair off!
Posted by Francis 2005.03.19, 21:00
Yes I do agree that Barbie is not really a good example for our children. In todays world young girls wants to look like barbies and it effects our kids so much, especially those ones that’s abit over weight. I have never bougt a barbie for any of my two girls. I am a Christian and would like to find out from any one out there, that might by any chance know. Is there anything demonic behind this doll, this is information I vé ˘een looking for, for so many years…and would like to know from a fellow christian brother or sister if they could help me with this question!
Many thanks
Posted by Pearl 2007.02.05, 12:52
I don’t think that playing with a Barbie doll would harm your daughters nearly as much as does the abysmally atrocious grammer that they are learning from their mother.
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