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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page paper that discusses this essay. A doll seems like an unlikely candidate for controversy. Yet, yet Frances Negron-Muntaner, in her essay "Barbie's Hair," describes how controversy immediately arose when the Mattel Toy Company released a Puerto Rican version of their famous Barbie doll in 1997. Communities, both in Puerto Rico and the mainland US, associated the doll with cultural connotations that involved "Puerto Rican identity" (Negron-Muntaner 39). The author of this provocative essay makes a number of pertinent points about this version of Barbie within the context of popular culture, however, two of the most intriguing points made in the essay are the significance that was attached to the meaning of the doll's hair and how this related to Puerto Rican identity and also how the doll represented a political position in terms of Puerto Rico's place on the world stage. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khngbsh.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Puerto Rican version of their famous Barbie doll in 1997. Communities, both in Puerto Rico and the mainland US, associated the doll with cultural connotations that involved "Puerto Rican identity"
(Negron-Muntaner 39). The author of this provocative essay makes a number of pertinent points about this version of Barbie within the context of popular culture, however, two of the most
intriguing points made in the essay are the significance that was attached to the meaning of the dolls hair and how this related to Puerto Rican identity and also how
the doll represented a political position in terms of Puerto Ricos place on the world stage. First of all, in explaining how Puerto Ricans perceived Puerto Rican Barbies hair,
Negron-Muntaner explains the significance of hair within a Puerto Rican cultural framework. In Puerto Rican culture, hair is a more of a signifying agent of racial type than is
skin color (Negron-Muntaner 44). In other words, wavy or kinky curly, black hair is an indication of African descent. For Puerto Rican women "who have spent countless hours ironing the
curl out of their hair...its Barbies hair that makes them cringe" (Negron-Muntaner 43). As this suggests, the implicit assumption is that a Puerto Rican Barbies hair would only be straight,
if it was straightened, which is viewed as an "act of self-hatred or conformity" (Negron-Muntaner 45). Within this cultural framework, the emphasis on Barbies hair begins to make sense. As
one critic points out, "to introduce a doll...that looks like it has no trace of African ancestry" to young girls just forming their sense of themselves as Puerto Rican women
"becomes a very serious issue" (Negron-Muntaner 45). Considering this, one can easily see why the doll was considered controversial. Many Puerto Ricans resented the doll for precisely the same reasons
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