@flyingwind
I personally can't stand the way Barbie looks now... and the fact that I didn't realize that toys like Bratz was selling just as well, if not better, than Barbie disturbs me because it makes me feel old XD I think Matell needs to stop trying to be like Bratz and go back to dressing Barbie like a princess and/or dressed in clothes that my grandmother would have worn.
The more I think about this dressing- and making-up, the more I come to think of it as an unjustified and quite threatening arms race - except you don't count the number of nuclear warheads each side spends millions on stockpiling, but on cremes and colours and dresses you paint your body with.
[Like the Beach Boys: "I like the colourful clothes you wear... *sings*]
But as you said... could we imagine a man saying things like: "Ooohh, darling! Your eyeliner is completely out of style. If you are looking as awful as this, I can't risk leaving the house with you..."
Nope, won't happen. He wouldn't even notice or care.
Women on the other hand do. Like hellhounds sniffing blood. Except they search for your Siegfried spot in your facade, where you can be hurt...
Well, I've just seen the (Michael Moore like documentary style with personal comment) film "Bigger, stronger, faster". It's about steroid use in the American society.
There was this very interesting scene I'd like to share with you:
At 1 point in the film the maker visits a psychoanalyst who digs out some "G.I. Joe" dolls of differing production years. I mean... here we have the perfect male equivalent to the Barbie doll... this is as close as it gets. I raised my eye-brows. First, he took out the oldest GI Joe doll, which had a "standard" body: i.e. not fat, not thin, not muscular, not a skeleton - like the name says: your average Joe. But then he gets out the GI Joes of the 90ies and subsequent years and you immediately notice how they "grow" taller and more muscular each time. Up to the point where they possess fantasy muscles you won't find in any-body's human anatomy, and of course a well-defined sixpack and biceps' like overblown balloons...
The last one looked very much like one of those Conan-the-Bavarian-Meat-and-Muscles-Tanks you play in Gears of War...
I mean... it's just ridiculous...
Which kind of muscles (you can train them to 2 different kinds: a) strong and powerful, short duration or b) not so strong, but very long duration - think of a weightlifter/Schwarzenegger (a) vs. a long-distance runner/martial arts guy (b). Ever seen a long-distance runner, who looked like Arnold? Nope, because the way he trains his muscles he will never look like that.
Then again, which one would I pick in a firefight with modern (science-fiction) weapons which might actually have no recoil whatsoever? Which means that physical strength plays NO ROLE AT ALL...
The big, tall, giant-size, shoot-anywhere-you-will-hit-me bodybuilder
or the small, quick, skilled marksman, who does not give you much of a target and has a steady hand and a good aiming.
Even if this was based on a science fiction computer game like Gears of War: Not so hard, is it?
In reality, in Africa, kids kill. And they do it just as efficiently as grown-up males.
Welcome to the 21th century. It's all about the evolution of tools.
A sword takes physical strength. An AK-47 takes pressing a finger.
Heck, even Barbie could do that...