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BMA’s Barbie Exhibit: How Society Views Beauty and Women of Color

BIRMINGHAM TIMES — What has Barbie done for you, and what has Barbie done to you? These are the questions curators at the Birmingham Museum of Art (BMA) want visitors to ponder as they explore the new exhibit “Barbie: Dreaming of a Female Future.” The exhibition, which opened on August 10 and will be open through January 2020, takes a critical look at Barbie as toy-manufacturing company Mattel marks the 60th anniversary of the iconic doll.

Published

4 years ago

August 31, 2019

Oakland Post

Barbie: Dreaming of a Female Future, depicting a view of a modern Barbie's house is displayed at the Birmingham Museum of Art. (Photo by: Mark Almond)

By Javacia Harris Bowser

What has Barbie done for you, and what has Barbie done to you?

These are the questions curators at the Birmingham Museum of Art (BMA) want visitors to ponder as they explore the new exhibit “Barbie: Dreaming of a Female Future.”

The exhibition, which opened on August 10 and will be open through January 2020, takes a critical look at Barbie as toy-manufacturing company Mattel marks the 60th anniversary of the iconic doll.

While Barbie has sparked the imaginations of children around the world for six decades, the doll has also promoted narrow beauty standards and body ideals that are unattainable for most women, particularly for girls and women of color. The exhibit is the brainchild of Hallie Ringle, the BMA’s Hugh Paul Curator of Contemporary Art.

“Many of us have a very complicated relationship with Barbie,” Ringle said. “While she is very much a figure promoting white womanhood and white standards of beauty, she was also the only doll—for many years, at least—that was telling girls to aspire to different careers; telling girls they didn’t have to have a Ken in their life, that their existence didn’t have to rely on a man or a baby, and that they could build their own spaces.”

Black Barbie

For the exhibit, Ringle wanted to create a literal space for visitors to explore as they examined their relationship to Barbie. The first Barbie Dreamhouse launched in 1962, and for this exhibit Ringle called on interior designers from the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Studio BOCA to create a life-size Barbie Dreamhouse in the BMA’s Arrington Gallery that guests can walk through and view contemporary art inspired by the doll.

Ringle said one of her inspirations for the exhibit was the work of Atlanta, Ga-based photographic artist Sheila Pree Bright, whose pieces hang over the sofa in Barbie’s BMA living room. These works are from Bright’s 2003 collection “Plastic Bodies,” which explores the complex relationship women of color have with white beauty standards by combining images of real women’s faces and bodies with those of Barbie dolls.

“I started looking at how multiethnic women perceived themselves when it came to beauty and looking at African American women and how they viewed themselves and their bodies based on the Western concepts and narrative,” Bright explained to The Birmingham Times.

Though Bright didn’t play with Barbie dolls herself as a child, thinking of American beauty standards led her to thinking of Mattel’s mainstay.

“Barbie is a cultural icon and the most popular doll in America. Even to this day, it’s the number-one fashion doll,” Bright said. “So, I started looking at how this applied to society’s views of beauty and women, especially women of color.”

Bright believes that in popular American culture, the essence of natural beauty is replaced by fantasy, a fantasy of which Barbie is both a product and promotion.

“In the media, we fabricate the illusion of the perfect body or beauty, even with the Barbie doll, and it’s rooted in Western concepts,” Bright said. “As a society, we get caught up in this illusion. I think that, as a metaphor, Barbie has become human and we have become plastic.”

Bright pointed out that even as voluptuous shapes and sizes have become more celebrated in mainstream media, this too has an element of artificiality. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates that buttock augmentation surgery increased by 252 percent between the years 2000 and 2015. And it’s not lost on Bright that rapper Nicki Minaj calls herself “Black Barbie.”

Barbie has had black friends since the release of Christie in 1968. The first diverse dolls named “Barbie” were released in 1980, and Barbie’s Dolls of the World collection hit shelves in 1981. It wasn’t until 2016 that Mattel introduced three new Barbie body types: curvy, petite, and tall. According to the company’s website, the new body types were meant to “reflect the world girls see today.” The launch landed Barbie on the cover of Time magazine.

This year, Mattel debuted a doll with a prosthetic leg and another that comes with a wheelchair as part of the 2019 Barbie Fashionista line, which aims to offer youngsters more diverse representations of beauty. Nonetheless, Bright is not convinced that the message Barbie conveys has changed, especially when she browses Barbie’s social media influencer style Instagram account @BarbieStyle.

“When you look at the images on their Instagram, you still see that Western narrative,” Bright said. “They’re not promoting those body types. It’s the same old narrative and a few different ethnic dolls as Barbie’s friends. So, what has changed?”

Click to view slideshow.

Barbie’s Dreamhouse

The BMA’s “Barbie: Dreaming of a Female Future” was created to be an interactive exhibit. There are no “Please Do Not Touch” signs in Barbie’s Dreamhouse. Visitors are encouraged to make themselves at home. Guests can lounge on the sofa in Barbie’s living room or go to the sitting room and watch artist Lauren Kelley’s thought-provoking video vignettes. There are iPads visitors can use to scroll through to learn more about the exhibit.

Barbie’s library is stocked with feminist literature by the likes of Margaret Atwood, Naomi Wolf, and Betty Friedan. There are children’s books, too, such as “Malala’s Magic Pencil” by Malala Yousafzai. Ringle has said her dream is to find people reading to their children in the exhibit. Kids can also have a make-believe meal in Barbie’s dining room and even write a letter to Barbie at her computer.

Visitors can check their makeup or hair at Barbie’s vanity in her dressing room, which features glowing furniture by Kim Markel. Then they can strike a pose in front of the Grace Hartigan painting hanging in Barbie’s foyer or the rhinestone-studded pink wallpaper by the New York design studio Flat Vernacular.

Artists from Flat Vernacular also created the eye-catching work that hangs just outside Barbie’s Dreamhouse. “If the Shoe Fits” reimagines a mariner’s quilt with hundreds of Barbie shoes to honor and highlight women’s labor in the American South.

Studio BOCA, the architectural and interior design company tasked with building Barbie’s Dreamhouse for the exhibit, is run by sisters Kate Taylor Boehm and Kirby Caldwell.

“We just wanted to honor the process of female imagination,” Boehm said. “So, we figured rather than trying to convey a particular message, our approach would be just to incorporate the work of all female designers.”

Fond Memories

Boehm and Caldwell played with Barbie dolls as girls, and their memories of Barbie are mostly fond ones.

“She was just this strong female lead. When we were growing up in the 1980s, almost all movies had these male leads, and the female characters were all secondary,” Boehm said. “Barbie was a place where we could write our own story and have the female be the hero.”

Through Barbie, these two sisters also began to imagine themselves as business owners, a dream they would eventually make come true.

“Barbie planted a lot of seeds in our heads of what it meant to be a career woman and have a vision and have drive,” Caldwell said.

Boehm, however, does have a memory of one day looking at her thighs when she was only 7 years old and thinking they were too big: “I guess that may have had something to do with seeing Barbie’s unrealistic thighs for so many years, but I never had a moment where I was like, ‘Oh I wish I looked like Barbie.’ It wasn’t really about that for me.”

It was about imagination.

“She was this blank canvas to which we could apply our imagination,” Boehm said. “Once we got a taste of being career women, even if it was only in our imaginations, there was no going back.”

A Female Future

The title of the exhibit is a nod to the phrase “The future is female,” which was first used in the 1970s but gained mainstream popularity in the past few years as it’s shown up on social media, T-shirts, lapel pins, and onesies. The phrase was adopted by supporters of former First Lady and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her historic run for president and has even been used by Clinton herself.

“A female future to me means control over our bodies and future and lives,” Ringle said, adding that she hopes the exhibit, filled with works by female artists and designers, will help visitors dream of that day. She also hopes men who view the exhibit will recognize the role and importance of womanhood in their own lives.

In 2018, the Barbie brand launched The Dream Gap Project, a global initiative aimed at giving girls the resources and role models they need to dream big and make those dreams come true.

“The exhibit really is just a celebration of people who have had the opportunity for their dreams to become reality and for their visions to be made tangible,” Boehm said. “It’s an expression of our hope that every person and, especially for this moment, every young girl will have the opportunity for her dreams to be made real at some point in her life.”

“Barbie: Dreaming of a Female Future,” on exhibit through Jan. 26, 2020, in the Birmingham Museum of Art’s Arrington Gallery

This article originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.

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WATCH LIVE! — NNPA 2023 National Leadership Awards Reception

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Welcome to the NNPA 2023 National Leadership Awards Reception
The post WATCH LIVE! — NNPA 2023 National Leadership Awards Reception first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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September 22, 2023

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OP-ED: Delivering Climate Resilience Funding to Communities that Need it the Most

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Just last month, FEMA announced nearly $3 billion in climate mitigation project selections nationwide to help communities build resilience through its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) national competition and Flood Mitigation Assistance program. In total, more than 50% of these projects will benefit disadvantaged communities, and in particular, 70% of BRIC projects will do the same.
The post OP-ED: Delivering Climate Resilience Funding to Communities that Need it the Most first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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6 days ago

September 22, 2023

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By Erik A. Hooks, FEMA Deputy Administrator

We know that disasters do not discriminate. Yet, recovery from the same event can be uneven from community to community, perpetuating pre-existing inequalities. Recognizing these disparities, FEMA and the entire Biden-Harris Administration have prioritized equity when it comes to accessing federal programs and resources.

The numbers tell the story.

Just last month, FEMA announced nearly $3 billion in climate mitigation project selections nationwide to help communities build resilience through its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) national competition and Flood Mitigation Assistance program. In total, more than 50% of these projects will benefit disadvantaged communities, and in particular, 70% of BRIC projects will do the same.

These selections further underscore the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to equity and reaffirm FEMA’s mission of helping people before, during and after disasters, delivering funding to the communities that need it most.

Building on this momentum and our people-first approach, FEMA recently announced the initial designation of nearly 500 census tracts, which will be eligible for increased federal support to become more resilient to natural hazards and extreme weather worsened by the climate crisis. FEMA will use “Community Disaster Resilience Zone” designations to direct and manage financial and technical assistance for resilience projects nationwide, targeting communities most at risk due to climate change. More Community Disaster Resilience Zone designations, including tribal lands and territories, are expected to be announced in the fall of 2023.

These types of investments have, and will yield a significant return on investment for communities nationwide.

For example, in my home state of North Carolina, the historic community of Princeville, founded by freed African American slaves, uses BRIC funding to move vulnerable homes and critical utilities out of flood-prone areas.

In East Harlem, BRIC dollars will provide nature-based flood control solutions to mitigate the impacts of extreme rainfall events in the Clinton low-income housing community.

While we are encouraged by these investments, we know more must be done.

Not every community has the personnel, the time or the resources to apply for these federal dollars. Fortunately, FEMA offers free, Direct Technical Assistance to help under-resourced communities navigate the grant application process and get connected with critical resources. Under the leadership of FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, this assistance has been a game-changer, reducing barriers and providing even more flexible, customer-focused, tailored support to communities interested in building and sustaining successful resilience programs.

In Eastwick, Philadelphia, FEMA’s dedicated support helped the city with outreach to multiple federal agencies. Together, we built a comprehensive community-led flood mitigation strategy. When applied and implemented, this will make this community more resilient to hazards like flooding, which was negatively affecting many neighborhood blocks.

In DePue, Illinois, we worked hand-in-hand with communities to improve their ability to submit high-quality funding applications for hazard mitigation projects. We are happy to share that DePue is the first Direct Technical Assistance community to be selected in the BRIC national competition. And, we know they will not be the last. Thanks to this assistance and their ambition, DePue was awarded more than $20 million to build a new wastewater treatment plant, which will reduce flooding and raw sewage back-up into the basements of homes.

In total, our agency is working with over 70 communities, including tribal nations, to increase access to funding for mitigation projects that will make communities more livable and resilient.

With extreme weather events becoming increasingly intense and frequent due to climate change, we must keep pressing forward and continue investing in ways to better protect ourselves and our neighbors. And we are encouraged that local officials are engaging with us to learn more about the benefits of the BRIC non-financial Direct Technical Assistance initiative—just last week, we saw hundreds of participants nationwide register for a recent webinar on this important topic.

We want to see even more communities take advantage of this initiative, and, ultimately, obtain grants for innovative and forward-looking resilience projects. To that end, FEMA recently published a blog with five steps to help local communities and tribal nations learn more about the benefits of this non-financial technical assistance to access federal funding. I hope your community will take action and submit a letter of interest for this exciting opportunity and increase meaningful mitigation work throughout the country.

With the pace of disasters accelerating, communities can utilize federal resources to reduce their risk and take action to save property and lives. FEMA stands ready to be a partner and collaborator with any community that is ready to implement creative mitigation strategies and help build our nation’s resilience.

The post OP-ED: Delivering Climate Resilience Funding to Communities that Need it the Most first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Tale of Two Underground Railroad Communities

ARIZONA INFORMANT — Prior to the Civil War, many communities in the Ohio River Valley were a part of an elaborate system that provided resources and protection for enslaved persons from Southern states on their journey to freedom. Once someone crossed the Ohio River, they traveled along unknown terrain of trails to safe houses and hiding places that would become known as the Underground Railroad.
The post Tale of Two Underground Railroad Communities first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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September 20, 2023

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By Christopher J. Miller, Sr. Director of Education & Community Engagement, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

Christopher J. Miller

September is International Underground Railroad Month.

This proclamation began in the State of Maryland in 2019, and now more than 11 States officially celebrate one of the most significant eras in U.S. history. With the signing of Ohio HB 340 in June 2022, Ohio became the 12^th state to designate September International Underground Railroad Month.

Many history enthusiasts and scholars hope the momentum of the proclamation spreads to other states so that all our forebears of freedom are remembered.

Examining this era, you find that the Ohio River Valley is instrumental in the many narratives of freedom seekers. These stories are critical to our understanding of race relations and civic responsibilities.

Before the Civil War, many communities in the Ohio River Valley were part of an elaborate system that provided resources and protection for enslaved persons from Southern states on their journey to freedom. Once someone crossed the Ohio River, they traveled along unknown terrain of trails to safe houses and hiding places that would become known as the Underground Railroad.

Gateway to Freedom sign

The Underground Railroad was comprised of courageous people who were held to a higher law that confronted the institution of slavery with acts of civil disobedience by helping freedom seekers elude enslavers and slave hunters and help them get to Canada.

Many communities were a force for freedom along the more than 900-mile stretch of the Ohio River Valley, but I would like to focus on two significant communities.

Southern Indiana was a major part of this history. It was originally believed that there were from Posey to South Bend, Corydon to Porter, and Madison to DeKalb County, with many stops in between.

In further examination, the Underground Railroad in Indiana was a web of trails through the forests, swamps, briars, and dirt roads. The city that is often overlooked in reflecting on the history of the Underground Railroad is New Albany, Indiana.

By 1850, New Albany was the largest city in Indiana, with a population of 8,632. Free Blacks accounted for 502 of that population. Across the river, Louisville was Kentucky’s largest city, with a population of 42,829. A quarter of the 6,687 Black population were free in Louisville.

Town Clock Church (aerial view)

Louisville and New Albany would grow to become a significant region for Underground Railroad activity. People like Henson McIntosh became a prominent community member and major Underground Railroad conductor. McIntosh was one of approximately ten Underground Railroad agents in New Albany who used their wealth and influence to impact the lives of freedom seekers crossing the Ohio River.

The Carnegie Center for Art & History is an outstanding resource that continues to preserve New Albany’s role during the Underground Railroad era. Approximately 104 miles east along the Ohio River is another institution that plays a critical role in elevating the profile of the Underground Railroad on a national scope.

Inside Town Clock Church New Albany Indiana safe house

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is located on the banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Ohio.

By 1850, Cincinnati would grow to be the 6^th largest city in the Union, with a sizable Black population.

The Freedom Center is prominently located in the heart of a historic Black community called Little Africa. Although the community no longer exists, its legacy lives on through the Freedom Center.

As with New Albany, the community that resided along the banks of the river served an important role in the story of the Underground Railroad. Little Africa was the gateway to freedom for thousands of freedom seekers escaping slavery.

Although there were Underground Railroad networks throughout the country, Ohio had the most active network of any other state, with approximately 3,000 miles of routes used by an estimated 40,000 freedom seekers that crossed through Little Africa.

Despite the growth of enslavement leading up to the Civil War, communities such as Little Africa and New Albany reveal the realities regarding race relations and a model for the dignity of human life through their respective efforts to be kind and resilient friends for the freedom seekers.

For More Information:

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center – https://freedomcenter.org/

Cincinnati Tourism – https://www.visitcincy.com/

Carnegie Center for Art & History – https://carnegiecenter.org/

Southern Indiana Tourism – https://www.gosoin.com/

The post Tale of Two Underground Railroad Communities first appeared on BlackPressUSA.