'Normal
Barbie' Doll With Average Female Body Is Coming to Life
Meet
Lammily, who is perfectly normal and of healthy stature.
Do you like the idea of Barbie but hate
that by even whispering her name you're contributing to the perpetuation of
superhuman, hyperheteronormative beauty standards that eternalize a culture of
shame? Well, meet Lammily.
Lammily is the forthcoming plastic doll
whose motto is, "Average is beautiful." Her body shape is based on
averages of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that is more often
used to track the American obesity epidemic. She is not affiliated with
Mattel's Barbie.
Last year, graphic designer Nickolay Lamm
created some concept images of the "Normal Barbie" that became very
popular around the Internet. (If you didn't see them, one is to the right.)
Today Lamm is launching a project to put the design into production and make
the dolls a reality. It's crowd-sourced,
it "promotes realistic standards of beauty," and it can be under your
holiday tree by late 2014 if enough people support the project.
Just like Barbie, Lammily has articulated elbows
and likes horses and fast cars and rodeos, but she also likes slow cars, or
whatever, it's even fine if you just have a bike and use a car-sharing service.
Who owns a car anymore? Lammily isn't here to judge you, or leave you for a
better-looking, closeted gay man with perfect sweaters and a nice car...
... If Barbie's biggest flaw isn't that she
couldn't actually stand up were she a real person, or that she can't seem to
dedicate herself to one profession enough to ever achieve greatness, or just
her caricaturistic stature itself, it's that, especially lately, she's been
lording beauty pride over everyone. Last month, one of Barbie's designers, Kim
Culmone, defended the doll's stature by saying that Barbie couldn't be made to
look otherwise because then her clothes wouldn't fit. Lammily's clothes seem to
fit.
When Barbie landed the cover of Sports
Illustrated's most recent Swimsuit Issue, a pseudocontroversial play for
media attention, the magazine said that flaunting Barbie's hyperbolic
appearance was in fact not about confusing the space between children's toys
and sexuality, but about honestly appraising one's self worth. It was about not
being ashamed of your appearance, because, look, Barbie isn't. People have come
after Barbie for years, telling her she looks fake, but she still puts herself
out there.
Anyway, next up: realistic version of
He-Man. Step one is getting rid of those ridiculous bangs. And that iron vest!
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