The Barbie Doll, Popular Culture and 'What Concerns You'

[RonPrice]

Modern living is filled with concerns, viewpoints, tips and tricks. Here is one that concerned millions and still does. In fact it is crucial to modern living, although of little interest to me....as you will see in the following prose-poem-Ron Price, Tasmania
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The popular doll, Barbie, artifact of female representation and identity, of depiction and posturing of women, has evoked a steady stream of critical attention since her debut in 1959. I have not been that conscious of this critical attention involved as I have been since 1959 with issues relating to my education, my career, my family and my religion. If millions of pre-pubescent girls have lived imaginatively and vicariously through Barbie this has not really concerned me. The world is burgeoning with issues and this was one far removed from my flight path. In 1959 I joined the Baha’i Faith and the agenda that has concerned me has only on rare occasions and only very peripherally involved the barbie doll. –Ron Price with thanks to “The Wonder of Barbie: Popular Culture and the Making of Female Identity,” Essays in Philosophy: A Biannual Journal, Vol.4, No.1, January 2003.

The essence of feminine beauty
is vigilance and artificiality.
Men may be expected to enhance
their appearance, but women are
supposed to transform themselves.

Who is the fairest of them all.
The mirror replies, “Before I
answer that, may I suggest an
alpha-hydroxy lotion?…this
Revlon spray?…this lipstick?

Where have you been Barbie?
You popped into my life when
I visited those kids in Whyalla
and when I went shopping more
than usual between marriages.

Images of maleness were many
and varied: my dad, grandfather,
uncle, those westerns on TV back
in the fifties and all those old chaps
in Baha’i history--unquestionably--

subtlely, insinuating themselves into
my imaginative faculty on cold
Canadian evenings; Jim Gibb
reading poems, John Dixon’s
quiet kindness, Douglas Martin’s
clever use of words, so many
ordinarily ordinary men, artifacts
of identity, of depiction and posturing:
nothing like Dick, his relentless jollity,
his banklike security and his always
impeccable decorator and merry picnic.

Ron Price
2 October 2006