Most Popular Videos Featured On KDKA.com
Mar 4, 2009 7:33 pm US/Eastern
Barbie Ban Proposal Raises Eyebrows
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
-
-
Barbie is about to turn 50, but one West Virginia legislator wants to see the fashion icon banned from his state.
AP
Barbie is about to turn 50, but one West Virginia legislator wants to see the fashion icon banned from his state.
Eleven-and-a-half-inches tall, Barbie sold for $3 in her first year and 300,000 of the dolls flew out of the stores.
Just a blonde single girl in a fantasy world, those pouty lips and uber-perfect breasts are still defying gravity and they are also still capable of stirring up a tempest.
"I just hate the image that we want to give to our kids - that you're beautiful - you're beautiful - you don't have to be smart," West Virginia Delegate Jeff Eldridge says of Barbie.
But the Mattell toy company was darn smart when they first introduced the plastic, fantastic female at the New York Toy Fair in 1959.
Now, the West Virginia Democrat wants to ban Barbie and her imitators from the Mountain State.
"I knew a lot of people were going to joke and poke me about it, and make fun of me," he said.
Eldridge appears to be right about that.
"I grew up and loved Barbies - played with them my whole life - but I think they try to educate young children as well," Stacy Macik of Bridgeville says.
Virginia Petersen of Murrysville agrees.
"I think it's ridiculous because Barbie makes billions of dollars a year and it'll hurt the economy even more - we have more important things to think about," she said.
"I think families are the ones who should quite frankly legislate how their children should be raised and what influences that should have," Anthony Graves from Plum said.
"Barbie is really a longstanding, and sort of complicated cultural icon and I think there are many ways Barbie could be viewed," Frayda Cohen, a professor of women's studies at the University of Pittsburgh, said.
Cohen is an educator and a mom.
"Parents and others in thinking about Barbie have moved really beyond the idea of body image and are more concerned with the ways in which Barbie -like potentially other toys really contribute to a kind of consumer culture," she added.
In terms of role models, Barbie has already logged 108 careers in her lifetime. With a resume like that, the West Virginia gentleman's prospects are fading fast.
"I couldn't get anybody to sign on the bill with me," Eldridge said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Architect Wants To Save Mellon Arena
Click to enlarge
10-Year-Old Shot In Arnold 1 hr 38 mins ago 
Stumble It!
Reporting
