Buffy Vs Barbie

[Dlou444]

When I was younger, my Dad wrote some amazing article about how much he disliked Barbie and the image it gave little girls about life. I was very proud of him. I have half a mind to look it up and reread it to my sister.

Tonight, I was out looking for stuff to get for my daughter for her 6th birthday party. My sister called and kind of scolded me saying that I should get her dress up clothes, Barbie's or nail polish and make-up (MAKE-UP! She's 6!) because she's a little girl and doesn't need to be watching Indiana Jones and The Incredible Hulk (I bought them the first season of the old show with Bill Bixby) and be obsessed with Buffy and Vampires.

Now, first off, I was raised on Indiana Jones and The Hulk, and I'm perfectly normal :lmao:! But, then second, wasn't Buffy MADE to be a role model/super hero for girls? Either way, she seems to ME to be a better role model than BARBIE!

For that matter, as far as being obsessed with vampires, I'm thinking that Spike and Angel aren't too shabby of role models themselves.

I think my daughter is PERFECTLY normal and well rounded, other than maybe not having the same TV show interest as the kids in her class. Which she DOES, she just also likes Buffy and The Hulk and oddly, Discovery Health. She's a very petite pretty little thing and just as comfortable in frilly dresses as she is in her brother's hand me downs, climbing trees and covered in mud. Mostly she likes to draw and do crafts. She knows just as much about Hannah Montana as she does Pokemon, and she's TOUGH AS NAILS. She's actually a LOT like Buffy or a weird mix like if Buffy and Spike had a baby. (Sorry Bangel folk)

I just fail to see how if she's just fine the way she is and more well rounded than any other kid I've ever seen, that I should be PUSHING Barbie's and make-up on her. I don't even know why I'd WANT to push make-up on a 6 year old. I usually tell her that make-up is for old cratchety people like me, not for beautiful little girls like her.

I just thought I'd throw it out there and see if anyone else thought this was a bit weird.

BTW, I ended up getting her this stuffed kitten she wanted, a pink GIANT MP3 player, some Dr. Pepper flavored lip gloss, some pink hair extensions that clip in, a little bead bracelet making kit, some more Indiana Jones movie cards and one of those Buffy birthday cards. I know my Aunt got her an Indiana Jones movie poster.
My sister seemed displeased. So, what do you think?

IS Barbie better than Buffy?

[MSchett]

Barbie is a terrible role model... it turns girls superficial before they can learn any differently while Buffy on the other hand shows a strong female figure tho i would definately limit her on which episodes to watch at 6... some things in the Buffyverse arent meant for little kids eyes

[Dlou444]

tho i would definately limit her on which episodes to watch at 6... some things in the Buffyverse arent meant for little kids eyes

Yeah, she doesn't get to watch them all. In fact, she ends up having to skip almost all the end of Season 6, which stinks because it's one of my favorites and random other episodes, of course, like the sex in the frat house and when Angel turns bad.
For a LONG time we didn't let the kids watch Smile Time, just because of the evil puppets. But, as kids do, they snuck it in one morning while we slept in. Luckily it didn't scar them from Sesame Street. They kept pointing out to me that it was FICTION.

Even more lucky most of the more "graphic" Spuffy scenes are when she's invisible, which helps a LOT.
It's a lot easier to screen now that we have the disks.

[Aethra]

I actually bought a Barbie earlier this year! I needed her to be in a film I was making for a project. She starred alongside Mr. Potato Head, My Little Ponies, Elmo the giant Pez dispenser, and Pooh and friends. But... that doesn't really answer anything. haha

So no way is Barbie any sort of good role model. I agree that certain aspects of Buffy are definitely not made for a child's eyes, but honestly, it's Barbie. Barbie is two dimensional (figuratively speaking). We know she's pretty and she has nice cars and other things, but that's about it. And let's face it, odds are she's proabbly a slut. Honestly, her wardrobe doesn't leave much to the imagination. Also figuratively speaking, Buffy is three-dimensional. We know her story. We know she's strong and loyal, etc. I'd pick Buffy over a hunk of plastic as a role model any day of the week.

I reckon your sis is just a fruit loop.
And I mean that in a "I'm sure she's very sane and a lovely person" way...
:)

[Lily]

personally I was always waiting for a Buffy Barbie - if she can be a Doctor/Dentist/Streetwalker etc, why she can't be an ass-kicking and yet accessible doll for young girls to play with and make imaginery stories of saving the world and falling in love with handsome yet emotionally unavailable vampires? (unlike my collectible figurines which are NOT for playing with as my young cousins recently found out)

of course Buffy is better than Barbie, but did anyone else think Buffy-bot was kinda like a Buffy!Barbie, or was that just me?

[eponinethen]

Buffy is the cool version of Barbie, the real version of Barbie, what Barbie could have been. Barbie is what you're supposed to assume that Buffy is – by looking at her hair, clothes and shoes – until you realize she kicks ass. For frak's sake, Buffy is a person with good and bad sides, she's a feminist, she's a superhero, she's something you can relate to, be inspired by, rely on... Barbie is... well... plastic?

[Superstar]

Barbie has all the cool clothes, houses, cars and I think even a yacht.
Not to mention her make-up line, fashion accessories, DVD deals and all the other marketing.
Friends? Skipper, Jem, lots of others - even Pokemon.
She kinda tramps around with G.I. Joe alot though.
Good lookin' party gal.
But she gets no sex. No genitalia.
Ken has to have the suckiest love-life - why he puts up with her crap is beyond me.
But, they got stuff!

Which is I guess the point your sister is making.
Stuff matters more in her view it seems.

[eponinethen]

But she gets no sex. No genitalia.
Ken has to have the suckiest love-life - why he puts up with her crap is beyond me.
'Cause he's the one to feel sorry for if she's the one without genitalia? At least he could have sex with himself, she couldn't even do that? And what is "her crap", really?
(Although, Ken doesn't really have genitalia either, does he?)

[Summers Blood]

Well I wouldn't worry about bringing her up on Buffy, I'm sure she'll be more rounded an individual growing up with Buffy in her life than growing up with Barbie.

Personally I think your sister needs to get a grip, and keep her nose out, at the end of the day she's your daughter and it's your decision how you raise her, so if you want her to grow up with the hulk and buffy, so what!!!

Also heard on the news today that there is a new Barbie out ..... S & M Barbie! http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1428128.ece How is that a good role model for kids!?!?!

As I've said, don't worry about what your sister said the presents you've got her sound great and more aimed at her age. I'm a teacher and I hate to see the 6 year olds at our school wearing make up for disco's etc... they don't look right! Oh and I love what you tell her about make up.... that it's for oldies and not beautiful little girls! I'm going to use that one!!! Love it! :)

[edb]

Barbie - A world where women have no balls, and men don't either 'lol'

My daughter has just turned 5 and she loves Barbie dolls, but she ADORES Buffy and even Doctor Who. Given the choice out of a Barbie Doll or a sonic screwdriver she would choose the screwdriver!

I don't mind her playing with Barbie dolls especially when she is making them save the day and get rid of monsters; her Barbie isn't interested in Ken or cars etc. At the end of the day to her Barbie is a doll and it's down to her imagination what kind of personality she gives Barbie. When I was young I had Barbie & Sindy dolls, and I was always marrying them off, or giving them boyfriends, making sure they had great clothes or that their hair was done etc My daughter doesn't do any of that with her dolls, so I'm not worried about Barbie being a bad role model for her - she has plenty of strong females who can provide an excellent role model for her. :)

To answer the question though, yes, Buffy is definitely a better role model than Barbie.

[Buffy obsessed fan]

Make-up for a six year old...? Even I only wear make-up when I'm going somewhere important I usually only were it once or twice every few months, that's just crazy talk...

And barbie as a role model...Well I played with barbies a lot, I won't lie, but I never saw barbie as a rolemodel. Buffy is a much better rolemodel than barbie is. Oh and isn't she YOUR daughter? You shouldn't have to listen to what your sister says. She sounds really normal to me, you shouldn't be worried.

[white avenger]

There's nothing wrong with allowing your daughter to see Buffy or anything else of that sort, as long as you take the time to explain to her what is going on and that the show is fantasy, not reality. All of this hoopla about how children are influenced by the violence and low moral values depicted in movies and on television is a bunch of crap. There's more violence and immorality depicted in the Bible or the average History class than in anything Buffy and Angel might do. Where the problem comes from is that too many parents never take the time to explain to their children that, while the hero might shoot the villain in a movie, it's not what should be done in real life.

[ILLYRIAN]

Dlou444
Barbie as a role model? hmmm, it was once stated that if Barbie was human sized she'd make Dolly Parton look like she needed a pair.
BUT
The important part, I cannot believe that you let a 6 year old watch Buffy!! Good grief!! Will the sky fall on our heads? looks up. Apparently not.
God, will the world come to an end, looks out the window, hmmm apparently not! What is apparently ? ap parent ly, I took that as me being a good person for letting my daughter watch Buffy.
But forcing your daughter to watch Buffy, or is it really a case of I'm making sure it's okay for her to watch. tee hee

Although I did get her hooked on the show when she was at least eight, well she was nearly eight. And that was only because the show hadn't started on the TV.
It was terrible for me, I had to watch Buffy while I was recording it and edit out the adverts, then I had to watch it again while my daughter saw it, just to make sure it played ok.
Guess what the topic at her school was?
But I had to give my daughter a well rounded education, so I let her watch Charmed, SG-1, Dark Angel, The Crow, Angel. And if any-one came into the room, how to hide the crisps and get out the dried fruit.

[eponinethen]

Also heard on the news today that there is a new Barbie out ..... S & M Barbie! http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1428128.ece How is that a good role model for kids!?!?!
Hm. Don't know why someone into S&M would be a worse role model than anyone else. Problem is most kids wouldn't get what the hell it was about, so I don't see the point – or the problem really – of them playing with one...

[Summers Blood]

Hm. Don't know why someone into S&M would be a worse role model than anyone else. Problem is most kids wouldn't get what the hell it was about, so I don't see the point – or the problem really – of them playing with one...

I wasn't necessarily meaning that someone into S & M wouldn't be a good role model, just that the age of children who play with Barbie how is it really appropriate for them to have a toy that is dressed in S & M gear. Would you like to be the parent who had to explain it to their child? Not that I'm a prude but I'd rather my child find out about that kind of stuff later in life... now if it was a doll for teenagers fair enough but children!!!! I'm not too sure!

[eponinethen]

I wasn't necessarily meaning that someone into S & M wouldn't be a good role model, just that the age of children who play with Barbie how is it really appropriate for them to have a toy that is dressed in S & M gear. Would you like to be the parent who had to explain it to their child? Not that I'm a prude but I'd rather my child find out about that kind of stuff later in life... now if it was a doll for teenagers fair enough but children!!!! I'm not too sure!
No I understood what you meant, and I'm not disagreeing. I just thought that maybe "How is that a good role model for kids!?!?!" wasn't a great way to put it. Don't worry, I wouldn't buy that for my kid either ;)

[Dlou444]

Such INSIGHTFUL INSIGHTS!

For one, yes Superstar, my sister is a LOT more into "stuff" than I have ever been. So, maybe it IS more about the "stuff" Barbie has.

She has a daughter 6 months older than mine. And the girls are like night and day. My kid is FAR more likely to play with bugs and dig in the yard and get filthy, hers is more likely to want to paint her nails and wear make-up. She even has a "fake hair" ponytail thing like you'd use in pageants that she wears to school sometimes.

My daughter DOES take the few Barbie type dolls she has and they PLAY Buffy with them. They also have a Planet Of The Ape Dr. Zeus doll who they pretend is a demon. I think she has the Cheetah girls and sometimes they play concerts at "The Bronze". It's cute.
So far, however, I KNOW Buffy has taught my daughter MANY things.
She's not afraid of "monsters" in the dark. In fact, she claims she can protect her brother from them IF they show up.
She's learned from Willow, Oz and Tara, that you can't CHOOSE who you love. I've mentioned before that she got in a LARGE fight with my niece about Willow and Tara and how it's wrong to tell people who they can and can't love based on who YOU think they're "supposed" to love.
She's learned that lying to those who love you and are trying to look out for you will bite you in the butt and you'll end up miserable "Tabula Rasa"....now, she doesn't lie, which is a STARK contrast to my niece. (Tabula Rasa is about where S6 ends in her mind, Tara just leaves and doesn't ever come back)

She's also given speeches about how we shouldn't judge people by how they look. She's INSANELY sweet to the old, handicapped, mangled in some accident, shorter or taller than usual, speaks a different language or is a different race. The REASON? Lorne and Clem! And by contrast, she's mentioned how the Mayor, Glory, Jasmine, "the bad lawyers"....they all LOOKED good and normal but are really MEAN. I've heard her give my niece speeches about how if you judge people on how they look to decide who to be friends with, you can miss out on some GOOD friends and could be making friends with people who aren't very nice.

She's also done things she's scared of and her reasoning is that the Scoobies (she doesn't call them that, but) do things that scare THEM all the time, but they end up stronger because of it. Or how when they fail, they keep trying and win in the end. Without sounding too proud, she wiped the floor with the other Kindergartners at field day last year, not because she's GOOD because she's about as graceful as a dying seagull, but from SHEER determination. When I asked her how she did it she said, "SLAYER POWER"!

All in all, I think Buffy has taught her things and GOOD things so early I couldn't ever have hoped to try to drill these things into her head by this age even if I TRIED! It's the amazing writing and the amazing cast who pulled all this off so effortlessly. In my mind, being "obsessed with vampires" and big green guys who are scary looking but save people has been an AMAZING benefit to her sociological development.

In contrast, we let her rent Barbie Fairy-something or other and I was HORRIFIED! Barbie would ask for help with something and the other people would say, "What's in it for me?" and they'd have to do something FOR these other people (like STEAL in one case) to get their favor, even with something hanging over them like, "If you don't help our queen will die and our city will be destroyed forever!" I brought it back 2 days early because I couldn't stomach her watching such a horrible thing!

Thanks for the reassurance. I needed it.

[MSchett]

Your kid sounds so fricking awesome!!!!!

[InsaneMystic]

I absolutely second MSchett on that. From what I hear, you can be damn proud of your youngster! Heck, she seems to cope better with the demonic puppets in "Smile Time" than me... the only ep that plays in the same league of creepy for me is "Hush"... What makes ST so awesome is that, it's both the scariest/most uneasing and the funniest ep of the part of S5 I know, and if your daughter can deal with that combination so well at her age, I don't think you have anything to worry about with her!

[Yam Sham]

Haha, if I had a kid (which I don't want at the moment, because A. I'm really young and B. I work at a camp...ugh, the kids are awful!), I would raise them the same way. I'd have them read Batman comics and watch Buffy and such, and they'd turn out to be total geeks, just like their mom. In other words, you sound like my kind of mom!

But as for the Buffy vs. Barbie debate, Barbie is, obviously, not the best role model. She has a perfect body, perfect hair, perfect skin...perfect everything. She's all plastic, and needless to say, nobody looks like that. But then again, there are plenty of versions of Barbie - Doctor Barbie, Vet Barbie, Astronaut Barbie, and whatever else is there - that could set a positive example. Bratz dolls, on the other hand...they're even worse than Barbies.

But as for Buffy, she's a much better role model. She shows that it's cool to be strong and intelligent, and it doesn't make you any less of a 'girl'. Of course, there are some negatives to Buffy as a role model; Sarah's very skinny, blonde, and beautiful, which seems to be America's 'ideal', and that could cause some kids to be a little bit insecure about their appearance. But that could be a good thing, because young girls tend to often base their role models on their appearance. After all, how many little girls look up to Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice?

But of course, overall, Buffy wins, hands down.

[MSchett]

o god not the evil bratz dolls

[Dlou444]

Spirit_Of_Fred agrees: sounds like you have an awesome awesome awesome daughter! and if i have kids, i think ill be showing them buffy now :)

LMAO! Well, she's SOMETHING. THREE "awesomes" may be a little much, but she IS something. Mostly she's a big goof with a LOT of spirit in such a tiny little midget body. But, thanks anyway!

[Yam Sham]

About the S&M Barbie -
I'd be outraged, too, but dude, that's Black Canary! It's probably more targeted toward comic geeks and collectors than little kids.