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Saki Murakami
Kathy Rowley
English201-11
Date July 2, 2012
Rhetorical Analysis:
From Multi Cultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Difference
Have you ever played with and wish to be like that one of the adorable doll
such as Barbie when you were in your early days? Many girls in their early childhood
play with their dolls and pretend like that is you. However, in the old days, when the
first Barbie came out, only white colored doll was available, even though the United
States of America was the diverse country. Therefore, many children had to play with
the doll which did not look alike them.
Ann duCille, who wrote the article, “From
Multi Cultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Difference”, says that Barbie is not just
a plastic doll, but contains racism and gender problems. duCille describes Barbie as a
symbol of racism and an oversight of gender cognition commodity.
The author of this article, Ann duCille, established her ethos by serving as the
chair and director of the Center for African American Studies at Wesleyan University.
She also published a book called “Skin Trade” which won the Myers Center Award for
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the Study of Human Rights in 1997. She mainly published on black women writers and
on racism and popular culture. Ann makes her point stronger by identifying her own life
experiences in the article (Greene 527, 528). duCille’s reputation conveyed certain
authority on Barbies, but as some agreed, some disagreed. As she grew up in the 1950s,
she was brought up in the post World War II in the small white town when people were
still using a discriminatory remark. Ann was too young to know what actually means,
but her mother prevented her from using those terms and taught them the history
(duCille 529). Therefore, she was free of biased view; however, this led her to realize
the difference in her status. duCille realized that there is some separation between
African-Americans and also, there were only white colored dolls in the store. Children
play with their doll by imaging themselves into the doll. If that is so, how about those
children have a doll, but there is no resemblance between the child and the doll? She
presented her point of view by showing her own life experience in the past as
African-American and made her statements very strong.
This article, which Ann duCille wrote, was designed her argument for anyone
who have or have not thought about how Barbie brings racism and gender problems in
the society. Secondary audience could be the feminists and the people who work on
anti-racisms. The author’s intention of speaking is to teach or to persuade. This article
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has lots of examples which every people could see and imagine understanding the
article easily. On the racism part, there were only white colored Barbie were available in
the store for many years even though there were many different types of people in the
country. On the gender part, she exposes that the Barbie is adorable, but it is not in the
right figure of what the real girls are. From the moment when Mattel started selling the
Barbie, some feminists have protested because they thought it brings more than a doll.
They thought Barbie is representing how white woman should be and like. (duCille
532). The Barbie is not just a toy, but has some propagandas of how women should be.
She wants the readers to be aware of those points of view, thinking out side of the box.
The main idea of this article is that Barbie doll is not just a doll which children
play, but also it brings us some gender propagandas which tell how woman should be.
Also, in the past, there were no varieties of ethnic Barbies like today. There were a black
psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark who did their research in the school in the
1940s. They were doing the research on how the segregation and racism affected on the
black children. They have done the experiment by showing the black and white doll and
asked them to choose. “When given a choice between a white doll and black doll, nearly
70 percent of the black children in the study chose the white doll.” (duCille 535). Some
children answered, “Because it looked bad” and chose the white colored doll. Some
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negative effects by the history of segregation and the racism have shown here. She uses
some actual research done on children for principal lines for the reasoning and how
Mattel acted after people considering the diverse problems. Author show her pathos by
telling her own personal experience and feelings, and the research done on African
American kids how they feel about the doll and their identity.
This article was published in a book called “Skin Trade” in 1996. (Greene 527).
Her style of writing is not very scholastically writing, but powerful statements which
tell people what we should think and consider about. Nowadays, Barbie is now diverse
and has lots of different ethnic types and woman figure changed slightly different from
the past, but it is still the same as before. The author’s speech does not succeed fulfilling
because Barbie is not just a “bad thing” to have. Ann says, “Is Barbie bad? Barbie is just
a piece of plastic, but what she says about the economic base of our society—what she
suggests about gender and race in our world—ain’t good.” (duCille 542). By reading
this article, many people would have an awareness of the Barbie doll, not thinking them
just as a doll. Because of Ann duCille’s work, we can now have better skills to read
what hidden propagandas they have and how we should handle it. The people should
not take the message directly, but also look from different point of view and avoid
receiving only what is on there.
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References
Greene, Stuart and April Lidinsky, eds. From Inquiry to Academic Writing.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
duCille, Ann. “From Multi Cultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Difference.”
From Inquiry to Academic Writing. Stuart Greene and April Lidinsky, eds.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.