Lammily: Average Beauty

Nonnavlis said:

I've never known anyone who felt Barbie was a role model growing up. Personally, I never once thought of Barbie as something I should have been looking up to (or even as beautiful a lot of the time). Barbie dolls were always the "bad guys" of my childhood toy collection, actually. I found their unrealistic proportions reminiscent of cartoon villains, rather than an ideal beauty. Not what Mattel had in mind, I'd imagine. My Barbies spent all their free-time enslaving My Little Ponies, trying to capture Beanie Babies to make fur coats, and going to drastic measures to maintain their slim bodies, like crazy pretend surgeries (In retrospect, I may have played a bit too darkly...).

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I took apart my Barbies and swapped their parts with abandon. One wound up with an arm from Spectra. Anybody remember Spectra? Yeah. And another had a tail appropriated from a little rubber relatively Barbie-sized Godzilla. And that's not even getting into the ones I spliced with toy vehicles.

I s'pose my Barbies could be role models... if your kid was born in a lab beneath the Umbrella Corporation.

Heh. On a less dark note, I don't think Mattel would have been impressed by my old-style (hard-faced) Barbie, in her handkerchief toga, on her Johnny West horse, riding to the rescue of whomever. Kind of like an early Xena. Unless she was chasing rustlers. She wasn't an 'image', just a convenient embodiment of whoever I needed ATM.
And, Barbie dropped to second string when I got Francie, who actually looked like a teenager. Er, Barbie's daughter or stepdaughter, usually.

Cyia said:

Again, with the proliferation, and consistently falling price of, 3-D printers, this will become easier.

A toy company would be able to hold an open casting call, select a line-worth (Say 15-20) diverse body types, scan them into the computer and have prototypes all within the month.

And if the printers ever get a foothold in the personal-use market, you'll see companies licensing patterns that can be downloaded, customized, and printed at home - including programs that allow a child to make doppelganger dolls.

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I agree that this is strong possibility (and it would be cool).

Though, I do think that frimble3 had a good point above about accessories. One of the good thing about the fashion doll "standard" size is that whether you buy Mattel-brand clothes/accessories or generic dollar store ones, they'll fit your doll. Though a wide range of sizes would be cool, it would limit your ability to interchange clothes or build up a collection of accessories (though, the more cynical part of me thinks that a company could really take advantage of this and use it as a way to get people to purchase more accessories).

But I definitely love the concept.

And, there's the home-sewing and the patterns for that. The patterns that my mother used 40 years ago to sew clothes for my Barbie will still work on today's Barbie. Eighteen slightly different bodies are only going to complicate things, and put people off.
'Eighteen' is not a random number: slim, average, plump, in tall, average and short, for male and female, should cover most bases.

'Average' Barbie Is Just as Fake

“Average is beautiful,” proclaims her maker, who has raised more than $370,000 in de facto pre-orders. Average is also supposedly “realistic” and “normal.”

In fact, average is neither desirable nor realistic.

Before embracing the reassuring claim that “average is beautiful,” consider the CDC statistics behind Lammily’s physique. Based on a representative sample of 118 people, the agency reports that the average 19-year-old female American stands 5 feet 4 inches tall. She has a 33.6-inch waist and a 14.1-inch upper arm. She weighs 150 pounds, giving her a body mass index of 25.5. That indicates that she is overweight. BMI is, however, a crude and controversial measure. Better are the CDC’s direct body-fat measurements. They confirm the same bad news: The average 19-year-old’s body is about 32 percent fat, just at the threshold for obesity.

If Lammily were true to life, in other words, she’d have rolls of fat, not a firm plastic tummy. Her figure would turn off both beauty-minded girls and health-conscious parents.

To make her excess poundage appealing, her creator has made his supposedly average doll an athlete. “She is fit and strong,” proclaims his website, showing the doll posed as a runner and standing with her foot on a ball. She isn’t fat. She’s muscular, with the kind of perfect bubble butt that requires great genes and many hours in the gym. The average 19-year-old may not have oversized thighs because she’s a budding Serena Williams, but it’s nice to pretend so.

Making average look unrealistically alluring -- Lammily also has oversized lips and eyes -- is a concession to market realities. “My doll is a cool-looking doll that just happens to be average,” Lamm told Fast Company. “Very few kids are concerned about body image like parents are.”

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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-10/average-barbie-is-just-as-fake

Great link. Glad to see my initial snarky feelings vindicated.

We mostly made Barbie and Ken hump. They just looked like they wanted it bad. Come to think of it, they still do.

I still think an average of a certain type of fit, athletic teens is much better than something essentially not humanly possible.

It's all ridiculous, we need to go back to inch/centimeter sizing.

Alessandra Kelley said:

I'm not sure what your point is.

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there was no point at all. i was being silly.

Hapax Legomenon said:

It's all ridiculous, we need to go back to inch/centimeter sizing.

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Hell yes we do.

I hate, hate, hate our current sizing system - mostly because there is zero uniformity. If someone asks me what pants size I wear, I am at a loss... it varies not only from store to store, but from brand to brand. Not a woman in the US can accurately say "I'm a size seven," because even if she's just shopping at one store, if there are multiple brands represented, "seven" could theoretically anything from "too small to get a leg into" to "big enough to fit three" of her.

I know there are standards for these measurements, but clothing companies apparently don't.

And I hate the argument that bigger women appreciate being able to wear a certain size number (as in, "Oh, I'm a size six") so clothing stores that cater to them size everything down. Seriously? It's not like the only way we can get a woman to love her body shape is to suggest it's different or smaller than it is. Use real numbers, and if you want to make women feel beautiful, make clothes that accentuate the best in their particular body shape. Celebrate it.

I am particularly sensitive about this because I don't consider myself unusually tiny (I'm 5'1 and hover in the 105-115 range) but I often can't find clothes even in the "junior petite" section of clothing stores. When a "junior petite" size 00 - which shouldn't exist because how the f*** do you have a size smaller than 0? - is two sizes too big for me and I'm forced to go to the little girl's department, I feel embarrassed. It's not like I can call ahead and ask, "Do you have anything that will fit my waistline?" because no one uses freaking actual numbers. All I get is, "What size do you wear?" and how the f*** can any woman know that anymore?!

Monkey said:

"Do you have anything that will fit my waistline?" because no one uses freaking actual numbers. All I get is, "What size do you wear?"

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"70 cm. If you don't have that number handy, go measure it yourself. It's why I'm asking."

Alessandra Kelley said:

I got that, eventually. I'm afraid I'm very slow sometimes.

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it's usually safe to assume, by default, that i have no point.

I knit, I make clothes, I need to know my size in inches to be able to do this. Saying I'm a "16" is not fooling anyone. I know I'm big as a house. Also, just having inches allows you to decide for yourself how much ease you want rather than go through a zillion different options.

That said, I might have appreciated a doll with fat rolls when I was little.

Hapax Legomenon said:

That said, I might have appreciated a doll with fat rolls when I was little.

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Technical problems with fat rolls, though. As many of us know, fat moves. It shifts, it re-arranges, it squeezes down and flows over. Very hard to model in a plastic doll that sits and stands.
* theoretically, easier in fabric - I have plans for a stuffed Santa doll that would have a 'belly that shakes like a bowlful of jelly': 'belly' to be a bag of a lightweight, stretchy fabic filled with small plastic pellets, or similar, that would shift as the doll is re-arranged.
Or, fat-suit longjohns.
Undecided as of yet.

And, I like Lammily's shape. By the numbers she may be 'fat', but speaking as a fat person, she looks at lot like the field-hockey players I remember from high-school. A 'running up and down a field with occasional interludes of slamming into people' look.

I didn't play much with plastic dolls when I was a kid. I'm sure there is some way to do it, though.

Lammily looks athletic to me, too.

I'm giving in and 'buying' one of these dolls. I've spent more money than this to satisfy my curiosity in the past, and I am curious. Not about the whole average/fat/role model aspects, but about Lammily as a doll.
First, how sturdy are the joints? I remember 'Tutti' (Barbie's little sister, anyone?) About 6 inches tall, wired for poseability. The wiring may have worked for adult collectors, as a kid playing with a bendy doll, I burned through a bunch of them. Totally unfixable, and the affected limb sort of stuck out at an odd angle.
I assume there are actual plastic 'joints' under Lammily's skin because otherwise the knees and elbows don't bend as neatly.
Also, skin texture. I suspect that Lammily is always shown in shorts not because she's 'sporty', but because to make her skin soft and stretchy enough to bend over the joints, they're made of something soft enough to 'stick' to fabric, meaning putting anything form-fitting on, like pants, is a bear. I remember that, too, from early jointed Barbies.
That's okay in a sporty doll, sweat pants are loose and comfortable. So are sweatshirts, robes, and caftans. ('Lammily, the average teenager who dresses like a fat, middle-aged woman'.)

And, it sounds like she's a 1/6th scale doll, like Barbie and G.I. Joe (or 'fashion dolls and action figures') only of more realistic proportions. I want to see what accessories work for her. The furniture, sure, possibly the Barbie bicycles, depending on what leg length they're designed for. And, aside from 'Lammily goes to military school/joins the Army' scenarios, the 'action figure' sources are a hot-bed of camping gear, etc, and much more realistic that the awful pink Barbie stuff.

Cyia said:

She's a toy, not a role model.

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I agree. I think a lot of things affect girls' body images in our society, but I find it hard to believe that this is really one of them (not a major one anyway). It always seemed obvious to me that Barbie wasn't meant to be realistic, and I never compared myself to her. Don't get me wrong--I wanted to be like her. But not in that way. I wanted to be like the woman I pictured her as in my imagination. Not the literal, physical doll. I would always take her out on cool adventure treks in the yard and things like that. I wanted to be a badass with a personality like the one I assigned to her.

ArachnePhobia said:

I took apart my Barbies and swapped their parts with abandon. One wound up with an arm from Spectra. Anybody remember Spectra? Yeah. And another had a tail appropriated from a little rubber relatively Barbie-sized Godzilla. And that's not even getting into the ones I spliced with toy vehicles.

I s'pose my Barbies could be role models... if your kid was born in a lab beneath the Umbrella Corporation.

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Ha! When mine lost her head due to an unfortunate accident, I superglued it back on, but then she could no longer move her neck. I worked this into the storyline of the game and had all my other Barbies become very sympathetic and supportive to help her deal with her new disability.

Fruitbat said:

We mostly made Barbie and Ken hump. They just looked like they wanted it bad. Come to think of it, they still do.

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Ken was a pussy. He was always the sad, single friendzoned guy. My Barbies were busy getting banged by the GI Joes.

All that said, I think the new doll looks cute too. But I still like Barbie!

What I dislike is this idea that we can't have characters (dolls or cartoons) that aren't realistic. We should be able to have a world of fantasy with characters that are unrealistically perfect, imo.

She's Available for Pre-Order

https://www.yahoo.com/style/normal-barbie-will-have-acne-cellulite-and-stretch-103049254128.html

And...

Buyers can pre-order a sticker package that will allow owners to add and remove “marks”that include freckles, glasses, blushing...

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For those who were complaining about a lack of female action figures, Bass Pro Shops has Adventure Girlz, including the adventure girlz sporting dog vet set, adventure girlz country horse set, and adventure girlz hunting set.

I had a 'Barbie' as a kid who had guns, a scuba suit, and a really awesome harpoon (gun) I never got the flight attendant set -- way too boring.

http://www.plaidstallions.com/horsman/policewoman.html

I didn't like the length of her hair, though. I didn't think girls or women needed long hair, but dolls did

Don said:

For those who were complaining about a lack of female action figures, Bass Pro Shops has Adventure Girlz, including the adventure girlz sporting dog vet set, adventure girlz country horse set, and adventure girlz hunting set.

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If my daughter liked dolls, I'd get her that one. All the camping and fishing we do...she'd like that better than any dressed-up Barbie.