Barbi and the Pieta
Fox News reports yet another attack on a venerable American institution, the Barbie doll:
West Virginia state lawmaker Jeff Eldridge proposed a bill Tuesday that would ban sales of the busty Mattel doll, and others like her, in the state, just days before the doll officially logs a half century on March 9.
“I just hate the image that we give to our kids that if you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful and you don’t have to be smart,” Eldridge told West Virginia Media. “I’d like to send a message to not only our children but parents and educators that let’s push education over the importance of beauty.”
I’m not sure what lawmaker Eldridge really has against Barbie, but he seems to give in to the same temptation other kill joys fall prey to; he hates beauty.
Many of the Barbie-phobic resort to criticizing the “impossible measurements” of the doll, if scaled up to full size. Barbie is said to be 6′ tall, weigh 100 pounds, and have measurements of 39-19-33.
Its not surprising that the Barbie-phobic would also be ignorant of art and the rules of proportion. The Pieta, Michelangelo’s masterpiece, features a Virgin Mary holding the crucified Christ on her lap with body proportions that are indeed “impossible”:
The figures are quite out of proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a woman’s lap. Much of the Virgin’s body is concealed by her monumental drapery, and the relationship of the figures appears quite natural.
From Wikipedia
It is said the Virgin in the Pieta would be 10′ tall if she stood up. But she looks natural there, holding her baby, the adult Christ.
A small sculpture of a woman, with exact proportions scaled down, would appear to the eye as an androgynous figure. Proportion has to be changed to retain the feminine essence of the figure.
I say leave Barbie and the little girls who love her alone. Try solving some grown up problems, like your state budget woes. Or violent crime. Or why Ken was neutered.
