Barbie, I'm sure, has had some questionable careers over the years but when I saw this certain career path I was a bit surprised. Apparently there is a "Splash and Spin Dolphin Trainer Barbie" available.
I guess I
was surprised by the complete and total lack of subtlety involved. This isn't
just like "hey kids, you can be a "Dr." or a "Lawyer"
it's " look how much fun it is to be dolphin trainer!" A dolphin
trainer? Who encourages their children to be dolphin trainers? I don't get it.
I'll get to the morals and ethics of it later but first, let's look at the
product details.
"Your
Daughter can Pretend to Be a Professional Dolphin Trainer." Your
daughter can be pretend to be a dolphin trainer, but God help you if your boy
wants to play with this toy. This thing is so geared towards girls:
"dolls and accessories let girls play out different roles and "try
on" fabulous careers, including professional dolphin trainer."
Girls don't just get to pretend to be a dolphin trainer, they get to be
"stylish" while they're at it: "Barbie doll knows how to make a
fashion splash! She wears a sparkly pink wetsuit and matching pink flippers, so
she always looks stylish while twirling in the water!" And Barbie
doesn't just "swim" with the "pretty pink dolphins" she
spins with them too! "Girls will love playing out all the training..in the
bathtub or pool!"
The
toy makes swimming with and training wild animals sound like so much fun, so
safe, and so cuuuuuuuuute!!! In reality, dolphin training is just not cute at
all. Dolphins, whales, and seals held in captivity for human entertainment are
not "happy" nor are they even "cute" most of the time since
they're usually sick, fatigued, and depressed. Maybe in the Product Details
they should be more realistic: "Your daughter will love trying to force
dolphins to come up for air while they're trying to commit suicide! Dolphins
are voluntary breathers and often try to kill themselves by sinking to the
bottom of the pool because they're so miserable so Barbie has an extra sparkly
outfit for such occasions!!" "Your little girl will love withholding
food from her animals to force them to do unnatural tricks on command so a
corporation can make huge amounts of money!" Or, maybe "your daughter
will have the time of her life escaping gigantic killer whales that try to hold
Barbie under the water and kill her, then thrash her lifeless body around like
a..doll!" Does this Barbie come with a kit for masturbating whales, which is essential for the perpetuation of the billion dollar breeding program for killer whales? Because if
you're really seriously about letting your girl become a dolphin trainer she
should probably be aware of the perks that will come with her
"fabulous" new job.
Every
single parent who buys their child this toy should have to sit through a
mandatory viewing of "The Cove." Dolphins in captivity are often
caught in the wild and a major source of captive dolphins are captured in Taiji,
Japan during the annual dolphin slaughter. Animal "trainers" from
around the world come to Taiji to pick out the "prettiest" and most
show able specimens while they ignore the hideous and cruel slaughter around
them. It's annoying when toys reinforce gender stereotypes but it's more
annoying when toys are encouraging children to enter a career by
misrepresenting it. If Mattel were honest, this is what the Barbie Dolphin
Trainer would really look like:
A petition's been started to get Mattel so stop selling this wacky Barbie doll, I guess you could sign it if you felt like it: http://www.change.org/petitions/mattel-barbie-stop-selling-the-barbie-doll-dolphintrainer?utm_campaign=action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petitionhttp://www.change.org/petitions/mattel-barbie-stop-selling-the-barbie-doll-dolphintrainer?utm_campaign=action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition
No comments:
Post a Comment