While procrastinating exercising this morning, I read yet another snarky commentary on the Twilight saga. This author pointed out the serious psychological dangers of letting young girls believe that there's a perfect man out there for them; the risk we take by filling their impressionable tween brains with fluffy romance and ideas of happily-ever-after. (That's right, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast and all the other fluffy fairy tales we feed our kids are damaging!)


Sure, the books might not be stand-out examples of literary excellence. Yes, men are freaking out about feminized vampires who glitter and refrain from killing humans and neutered werewolves who cry, pout, and whine. Women think Bella is a spineless weakling and Edward is a dangerous control freak, giving girls the wrong idea about relationships. The idea that the hero refuses to have sex with the heroine before marriage, or that both of them are shhhh... *virgins*, is totally unrealistic. And of course, getting married at 19 is just absurd ... after all, no one could really fall in love in high school, right?

I hate to say it, but if we're worried about the minds of our youth being corrupted by Twilight, we are so far removed from the culture in which we live we risk becoming totally irrelevant. I mean, check out the Ken doll I spotted at Walmart a few weeks ago.

Sweet Talkin' Ken is billed as the "ultimate boyfriend." You tell him what you want to hear and he repeats it back to you in "his" voice. Talk about unrealistic ... and don't even get me started on the detrimental effect Barbie's impossible measurements and lack of muffin top have on the female psyche.

But, gee, could that lack of realism have anything to do with the fact Ken and Barbie are TOYS? Kind of like the Twilight series is FICTION? Remember your definitions now, fiction is not true. It's for entertainment. It doesn't have to give an accurate depiction of reality because it isn't real. Read that again.
It. Is. Not. Real.

Every generation of young people latches on to something – a band, a movie star, a fashion style – that the older generation freaks out about. They're convinced the collapse of the civilized world will rest solely on Elvis' swiveling hips or Edward's sparkly skin. Remember the fervor over Olivia Newton-John's early '80s song, "Physical"? Or the protests over the length of the Beatles' hair? Or the flappers and cropped hair of the '20s?

This too shall pass.

I'm today's blogger at Inkwell Inspirations and Monday is the day we focus on current events.


However, as current events tend to be rather gloomy, I opted for some lighter news ...

What's going on in Barbie's world? Or rather, what's going on with Ken and Barbie? Yep, that's right. Ken is staging a comeback, with a new look and a new plan to get back together with Barbie.

By the way, did you know Ken's last name is Carsons? Or that Barbie's full name is Barbra Millicent Roberts?

We're enjoying an amusing discussion this morning, so stop in and share your thoughts!

I ordered a mixed lot of 40 Barbie shoes off eBay use for some craft projects. They arrived yesterday.

melloveschallah via Flickr

(You know you're a redneck from a landlocked state when you get excited about mail that has an airmail sticker and a stamp from Singapore on it.)
Even as children we know there's something not quite right with Barbie. Those impossibly tiny shoes that fit on her permanently disfigured feet. The waistline that is nearly as narrow as her neck. Legs that are twice as long as the rest of her body.

(Good article here.)

Don't get me wrong. I love Barbie, and her 432 multicultural, politically correct friends, and their 36 million accessories. Barbie is the source of countless hours of creative play. Even into adulthood the entertainment value Barbie provides continues. A quick Internet search for Barbie images reveals grown-up Barbie playtime... as if some of the things we did with our Barbies as kids wasn't bad enough.

(Mine were frequently held prisoner in a "stone" dungeon beside our fireplace and fed only bread and water and allowed to wear rags. And then there was that little fling with Luke Skywalker from next door. Mom was not pleased to find them in the closet. Hey, I was 9. I had NO IDEA what was going on. And you have to wonder about the girl who tied her Barbies to the fan by the hair and waited for their heads to pop off.)

Anyway, I found pictures of Goth Barbie, Barbie with a "tramp stamp" tattoo, trailer trash Barbie, menopausal Barbie, redneck Barbie, recently paroled Barbie, teen pregnancy Barbie, and more. Those are the "clean" ones. 

Reports of what a Barbie doll would actually look like in real-life have been circulated for years. But nothing makes the reality of her distortion as obvious as the following picture from this Forbes.com report. (Click here for the full article.)

Barbie Distortion 39-18-33

Seriously, she's a little weird lookin'! Don't you just want to twist her waist around backward?
I want to see someone do the same kind of Photoshop technique with one of the newer fashion dolls, the ones with the ginormous heads and eyes like the lemurs in Madagascar. CREEPY!

Did you cut your Barbie's hair?
Ever try to curl it with a curling iron?
What was your Barbie's job? (Back in the days before her job and the tools of her trade came with her in the box.) Mine was a "bookbinder." Seriously. She stapled tiny construction paper book covers to folded pieces of typing paper.

I had to get a new cell phone last month. Cell phones, like Barbie, require accessories.  I ordered my Crackberry ... I mean Blackberry ... case, and the travel charger, and the USB cable, and the car charger, and little plastic screen protectors I think are made of the same stuff as Colorforms.
The screen protectors were packaged in what is known as a "clam shell" plastic package. I fiddled with it, tried to pry it open with my fingernails, and handed it over to my 16-year-old son to work his magic on it with one of his multiple pocketknives. No wrap rage for this girl!I failed to read the directions for putting the thingies on, however, and ended up throwing them out.
Wrap rage is just one of the latest manifestations of anger we've defined and labeled. Before wrap rage, we had road rage. And air rage, which has been known to afflict even naturally sweet and good-tempered pastor's wives (sarcasm intended). Everyone who has ever interacted with a computer has experienced some degree of techno rage (usually manifested by verbal abuse and sometimes physical violence toward electronic equipment). Clinicians have even devised an official name for this "new" disorder: Intermittent Explosive Disorder. They insist these episodes are the result of damage incurred to various regions of the brain. Okay, so if you've ever flown into a rage, you've probably got brain damage.
I've apparently always been prone to raging. Even before it was cool. I've got the scars in my eyebrows to prove it. I had a bad habit of slamming cabinet doors open and shut while demanding more juice as a toddler. Even in adulthood, I've thrown precious objects, kicked chairs, slammed doors, and walloped my steering wheel until my hands were bruised. Yeah, I know. I'm admitting to brain damage. And your point is?
Seriously. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, opening packages is a dangerous business, resulting in more than 6,000 emergency room visits annually in the U.S. alone.
So what's happening to us, as a people, that we can be emotionally overcome by a bit of plastic wrap to the point of inflicting physical harm upon our persons? Is the pressure so great we simply can't handle it? I don't think so. Somewhere along the way we've accepted our right to be angry and lost the ability to express ourselves without resorting to rage. In the worst cases, that rage results in homicide, terrorism, and all kinds of violence.
What if you didn't have the right to be angry anymore? What if you HAD to find other means of communicating your feelings? What if, instead of flailing and screaming and throwing that plastic package across the room or stabbing at it with the nearest sharp object, you chose a different response?
You'll have an opportunity, maybe even today, to overcome some kind of personal rage  explosion. I dare you... choose a new path.
And while you're at it, you can order this nifty little tool from ThinkGeek.com . (Which is one of the coolest websites I've found in weeks, by the way.) It makes me wonder if the inventor of this gadget had a bad case of wrap rage and channeled all that energy into finding a way to overcome it.
Imagine what you could do with your next opportunity to rage, throw a fit, or have a tantrum. You could find a cure for some dread disease, or solve the crisis of slow check-out clerks, or ... Get busy, people, the world needs you!