Much to my surprise, real-life Barbie does not look like a Real Housewives of Orange County casting reject. The above picture is the creation of college student Galia Slayen, who mimicked Barbie’s proportions into a life size version in honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. THIS. IS. AWESOME.
Slayen is holding up a mirror to the ridiculous body standards society (and Mattel) have embraced, AND she’s making what we interpret to be a pretty girl into something highly undesirable. Both are no doubt pleasing to women everywhere!
Let’s just hope she doesn’t set her sights on re-creating the Cabbage Patch Doll. Those are terrifying enough in their current sizes.
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oh so that’s honey boo boo in 20 years .-.
that is so freaky if you think of it.
if a barbie were life size she would be 7 feet and 2 inches and her neck would be twice as long as a humans neck
Come on Nerdist, I expect this from The Today Show, but I expect more from you guys. http://www.squidoo.com/the-truth-at-last-the-real-measurements-and-proportions-of-a-modern-barbie-doll
Barbie’s head should be between 1/5 and 1/4 of her height. It’s that freakishly small head–a purchased toy for doing Barbie hairstyling, that’s unnecessarily making her look like an alien.
Not to mention she has no ribcage. If this were barbie’s proportions she’d look like a barbie doll in the picture. She doesn’t.
Ok, so I’m lost as to why everyone insists that real life Barbie would be so tall. If you’re making her to scale, you can make her any height you want.
Ok, so I’m lost as to why everyone insists that real life Barbie would be so tall. If you’re making her to scale, you can make that scale any height you want.
I would rather they focus on Barbie’s career aspirations or her pink accessories; doll bodies are not real bodies. I used to have Barbie’s kid sister Skipper, who was flat-chested and flat-footed and wore sneakers. I related to her more.
AND WHO SAYS STUFFED ANIMALS ARE NOT REAL? MINE ARE! REAL I TELL YOU!
The one on the right looks so lifelike…
See what it might be like to be the subject of persecution for being “to perfect”. This story is shown from the dolls point of view and I think quiet dramatic and eye opening about the idea of getting rid of images and ideas we don’t like. If you are interested in this issue I think you might want to check it out. You can watch it for Free at this website http://www.toyboxbitch.com/files/PAGES/VIDEOS/VIDEOS.html
The Barbie mold that’s around today is actually pretty well proportioned, but the one I grew up with (80’s and early 90’s) was not. She had a weirdly triangular shaped torso and pointy boobs, but I’ve chalked that up the company using a mold that was easier to duplicate. Also, it’s a freaking doll. Raggedy Ann never looked like a real girl nor do stuffed animals look like real animals. They are just exaggerated versions of the real thing, like cartoons. Plus, it was more about the outfits than the doll. For me at least. Also, Rocker Barbie was the best.
I am confused. This looks nothing like a Barbie doll made 6 feet tall. Toy Barbies don’t look like that… I will read the article to try make sense of it but so far I am extremely confused.
This sculpture is a complete fabrication and it is very disturbing that news outlets continue to spread this myth of Barbie’s “wildly unrealistic” proportions without checking the facts, you can see proof of the real numbers at
http://www.squidoo.com/the-truth-at-last-the-real-measurements-and-proportions-of-a-modern-barbie-doll
I am Barbizon! Take me to your department stores!
Imagine my surprise the day I realized I couldn’t crank my torso around in four full rotations and then helicopter my legs like a GI Joe. I… I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered…
Ugh, I am truly sick of people hating on Barbie. My mother must have raised me better than most parents because I never believed I would look like barbie. As a matter of fact an eating disorder would go well with my lack of diet and exercise right about now…I’m kidding. But really, she was a doll…cartoons were just that and people need to talk to there kids and stop raising brain dead followers. I’m just saying.
Saw this in passing and laughed my ass off. And then I got really mad at the fact that no one called this girl out on the so-called math behind the scale. Apparently no one at the Today show has any spatial reasoning abilities whatsoever.
I suppose what she’s trying to do is kind of noble, though blaming a toy for society’s body image woes is pretty absurd. Especially considering something like this happens every couple of years and every couple of years the toy maker has to remind everyone that, while the doll may be miniature, cloth is cloth. In order for the clothes to sit naturally on the toy, its proportions need to be exaggerated.
By the looks of things, though, she probably should have spent a little less time playing with Barbies and a little more time on her math homework.
I think someone’s never actually seen a Barbie doll, all the naked one’s I’ve seen have been fairly well proportioned (I’m not a weird pervert I have a sister – I’m not sure who did the clothes removal though)
Sorry to rain on the parade but a quick Google for naked barbies (not recommended if you’re at work) reveals they’re fairly normally proportioned, just small.
I don’t see the problem here.
Why is the life-size Barbie’s head so small?
And GOOD GOD! SHE’S GOT NO HANDS!! Perfect woman? I think not!
smartbunny, this is frequently done on paper. I’m a science teacher, and I’ve seen this activity in several books for fun math/science activities.
I swear this has been done before. Maybe not in a model, but definitely on paper. I am not smart enough to understand how the doll’s proportions translate into human ones, though.
Yeah, this is really eye-opening stuff. I hope someone does a life sized ninja turtle so that it’ll finally sink in that I will never be able to have that same healthy green glow and shell hard abs no matter how many pizzas I eat or friends I karate chop in the face.
These toys set such dangerous standards for kids.
Are you sure it didn’t say “collage” student?
I’d bang her.
I kid! I kid!
It’s kinda’ cool that someone would do that to show how off Barbie’s proportions are.
I played with Barbie quite a bit as a child, but I don’t remember ever thinking that it was the ideal of what I was supposed to look like. So I’m on the fence about all the fuss over her weird proportions, especially when you can’t go see a movie or watch just about any television show that gives a much worse perception of what “society” believes women should look and act like.
Wouldn’t a real real life Barbie would look like a 6 foot tall Barbie, not like a 10th-Grader’s paper mache art project?