Skin Art Barbie! Via A_Mangseth @ Flickr.
This week UPI informs us that some parents have worked themselves into a lather over the new “Totally Stylin’ Tattoos Barbie”, which allows children to stamp temporary tattoos on Barbie and themselves with a little tattoo gun thingy. ZOMG, the horror! Because otherwise, Barbie would totes be a fabulous role model for your little girl. (Here I acknowledge that there are major feminist issues with Barbie’s looks and the message they send; I’ve got those issues, and I’m sure you do too, but that’s a broader discussion for another post—we’re just talking Tattoo Barbie here.)
Of course, the backlash against the doll opened the door for all kinds of small-minded fuckery, including an op-ed piece entitled “No Virginia, Santa Will Not Be Bringing You Tattoo Barbie” in which a self-proclaimed “old-fashioned daddy” who “just can’t get used to a world in which women wear tattoos and men wear earrings” loudly and proudly proclaims that he will not be buying said toy for his daughter, whom he refers to as “Her Royal Highness, the Princess.” (Ladies, I defy you to read the whole article without puking. Click at your own risk. You’ve been warned.)
The reason being, of course, that The Princess’s Tattoo Barbie might be some kind of threshold doll drug, and where might that lead? Her father wonders aloud: “Tongue-Ring Barbie? Safety-Pin-Eyelid Barbie?* Reduced Mammaries Barbie*?”
Jesus H. Christ in a tattoo shop. Needless to say, we all know that Old-Fashioned Daddy wouldn’t have felt that way about a tattooed action figure for his son. This is all about a father’s concern for his daughter’s precious femininity, which would be sullied by tattoos on a doll. Because, y’know, once Barbie gets tattoos, it’s all over for womankind. ’Scuse me while I head/desk for a minute. BRB.
Full disclosure: I never played with Barbies, but I have two tattoos. The first I acquired at 18, from American Tattooing in Carrollton, Virginia (right across the James River Bridge from Newport News! Best tattoos in the Tidewater!). When I told my mother about it—by phone—there was a long, considered pause. I could hear Mom’s more traditional side warring with her more feminist, body-positive side; picture a little devil representing her painfully proper, church-going WASP upbringing and a little angel representing her feminist, educator-with-a-PhD adulthood. The angel won out; she exhaled and said, “Well, it’s your body.” When she actually saw the tattoo, she kind of liked it and all was well. No one else in my family seemed to care, with the exception of Grandma Sharper, who told me “that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done”, which only serves to illustrate how little Grandma actually knew about my life, because that tattoo doesn’t even make the top 100 on the “Stupid Shit I’ve Done” list. When I got my second tattoo—age 26, at Triple X Tattooing in New York’s Garment District—no one cared; they were over it. I’ve been considering a third, but haven’t decided. It’s possible that a third will make me feel overdecorated, and with tattoos you can’t take Coco Chanel’s advice to “just take one thing off.”
According to the Pew Research Center, I’m hardly a maverick: 40% of people between the ages of 26 to 40 have a tattoo. Tattoo Barbie doesn’t represent some crazy trend on the fringes of society–it’s what 4 in 10 of Princess’s friends will look like by the time she hits middle age, if not before.
More importantly, having tattoos–or any other body-altering decoration–has never once prevented a woman from getting an education, earning a living, contributing to society, being a good daughter/sister/friend or anything else that her parents might wish for her. So Old Fashioned Daddy can stuff it. His little Princess may be denied her Tattoo Barbie, but after she turns 18, chances are excellent she’s going to show up on the doorstep of some tattoo parlor somewhere. Then Daddy’s going to realize that Tattoo Barbie wasn’t so much a gateway drug as a harbinger of his daughter’s independence–one where she didn’t give a fuck about her daddy’s outdated notion of femininity.
*Yowch! But to each her own.
*Equating breast reduction surgery with tattooing or piercing is ignorant on so many levels I hardly know where to begin.
How telling that he views a breast reduction surgery as a female transgression.
What a wanker.
And he spends so much time telling us that they’re all displayed naked. Dude.
The “Math is Hard” Barbie was just tellin’ it like it is. Santa brought her. But women should NOT modify their bodies without male approval, so tat Barbie is where he draws the line. Grrrrr the more I think about this the angrier I get.
Reduced Mammaries Barbie?
Sometimes I despair for the state of humanity. And “Her Royal Highness, The Princess” makes me think of that SNL/Ben Affleck spoof of Olbermann where he was righteously indignant on behalf of his cat, Miss Precious Perfect.
@RockTheDebit: You read the whole thing! I warned you! I could easily have picked apart every single sentence of that piece and snarked endlessly. Suffice to say, I feel sorry for Miss Precious Perfect Princess. She’s gonna have some MAJOR daddy issues.
@SarahMC: Because Old Fashioned Daddy, tool of the Patriarchy, gets to determine what kind of body modification is appropriate for us silly girls. Tats? Hell no! Breast augmentation? Hell yes! Grrrr….
Sigh. Reading that weird piece just left me with a uncomfortable feeling, like The Princess is going to have a lifetime of “disappointing” her King, the Daddy. I wish Tattoo Barbie could have been trashed in a more thoughtful way that I could get behind! But seriously, one more strike against ol’ Barb. The ol gal just can’t catch a break!!
Something about the fact that this guy uses the word mammaries freaks me out. I can’t decide if I would like it better or worse had this jerk said something like “tits” or “funbags” more in keeping with his general asshattery. Why not just say BREAST?
As for tattoos, I don’t have any. Not that I haven’t thought about it, but I’d never be able to commit.
As for this Barbie, she sorta looks like a circus freak, which is perhaps refreshing compared to her usual “Stepford Wife” look. She could run away with the guy from Flannery O’Connor’s “Parker’s Back.”
Yeah, I’m worried about the kid, too. A parent who relies on that hyperbolic, stereotypic “princess” language is likely to revert to hyperbolic, stereotypic “tramp/bitch” language when the princess decides to exercise her own will.
Also: this dude is about 1/10th as clever as he thinks he is.
I will say that I was my family’s princess. But that’s what the name Sarah actually means.
Damn straight, Funnyface.
How much do you want to bet he takes the poor girl to Purity Balls?
Given how well repression works in child-rearing, I assume that Miss Precious Princess will one day run away with a guy who looks like Carey Hart:
http://www.workman.com/authors/images/Carey%20Hart2.jpg
@funnyface. My dad calls me Princess, too. But that’s where the similarities to this jackass end.
Sarah MC: “Purity Balls” is a most unfortunate double-entendre.
The other thing is that if 40% of 26- to 40-year-olds currently have tattoos, that means there are a LOT of parents who have tattoos. Why should these kids be given the impression that all tattoos are evil? Why should they have to get the idea that their parents are bad?
I will quibble with this though: “More importantly, having tattoos–or any other body-altering decoration–has never once prevented a woman from getting an education, earning a living….” Some of that is true, but you are limited as to what jobs you can have if you have tattoos, particularly visible tattoos. Some of that is culturally imposed (like that you are unlikely to get hired as a preschool teacher if you have tattoos on your face and neck) and subjective/not right, but there are the rare jobs that you could be eliminated from for reasons unrelated to cultural acceptance and expectations (e.g., working with ridiculously strong magnets with certain types of tattoos or piercings). You might not be *prevented* from getting A job or AN education, but you might be limited in what types of jobs or education you can get. However, most people probably have at least a vague idea of what they want to do with their lives at age 18 anyway, so the objective limitations are likely not that big a deal.
Sorry, rambling.
@DangerMouse: It’s true that if you go for the more extreme body alterations, you’re going to encounter more extreme levels of resistance from society in general. That said, people with face tattoos or implanted horns or a row of safety pins in their lips are aware of the effect it has. They’re choosing to make a statement.
I once dated a guy who had tattoo sleeves (nearly all of his upper body was heavily tattooed) and he worked a white collar corporate job in Manhattan. He always wore long sleeved shirts, though–he knew what compromises he had to make in order to have the kind of job he wanted.
My dad calls me Sally. Not as a nickname, but because he confuses me with his sister. He also has called my little sister “Cleo.” That was our cat.
Wow, I wish they’d made Tattoo Barbie back when I was little. My best friend and I had to get by with tattooing our dolls with nail polish and colored sharpie markers. And safety pins, for when we decided we wanted to tattoo them the “real” way.
If “Princess” wants to tattoo her dolls, I guarantee she’ll figure out a way, whether her daddy wants her to or not.
I should not have read that article. I clicked on the link automatically, before I saw your warning.
A quick Google search reveals that there HAVE been Barbies with tattoos before: http://www.amazon.com/Mattel-N4758-Totally-Stylin-Tattoos/dp/B001NXO1YE (one that comes with temporary tats for the kid, too!). And I think there has been a Ken doll with an earring as well. So there, Old-Fashioned Daddy!
Okay, wait, I’m confused – is the column old, from before there was a real tattoo Barbie? There’s a 2001 copyright at the bottom, but I’m not sure if that applies to the article itself, or the website design, or what.
@cate: yep, it’s an old column. There have been tattoo barbies before.
That can’t be a real editorial. Are we sure it’s not from The Onion or something? Because that whole ‘all of my daughter’s Barbies are stacked (so to speak) completely naked on the shelves’ made me want to scrub my skin off. Blech…. And ‘Reduced Mammaries Barbie’? This guy seems a little too into his daughter’s collection.
“Reduced Mammaries Barbie”? Really?? Cause y’know, having ginormous boobies for the consumption of the public takes precedence over intense back pain any day . . . . *headdesk* indeed.
What an idiot . . . thank God that my dad (despite being pretty WASP-y) has more sense. Mind you, I feel that things that grow underneath rocks have more sense than this guy.
[...returns from bathroom, wiping mouth]
I did not heed the warning. Ick. Although the line “Since I am a daddy, and life-long member of the male gender” (bold mine), did make me laugh. But yeah, definite creepster.
Since this article IS from 2001, that means that Her Royal Highness is now 14. Wonder how she feels about her doting Old-Fashioned Daddy these days?
I really hate the sexist anti-tattoo bullshit. In Britain lower-back tattoos are called ‘tramp stamps’ because, obviously, women who like tattoos are just cheap sluts. Argh.
Sadly, zooeyibz, the “tramp stamp” label is not exclusive to Britain. America also has cheap sluts women who have the audacity to put whatever they damn well please on their own bodies. The nerve!
hmmm, the “cheap sluts” part was supposed to have a strikethrough…HTML, I iz doin it rong.
[...] Kari, you’ve come to the right place. BeckySharper wrote about tattooing a few months back, when there was cultural hand-wringing about the Tattoo Barbie, but we are happy [...]