10/21/2013_Barbie Type

            Transnational America, by Inderpal Grewal the focus is placed on Asian Indian and Americans gender, ethnicity, and the identity of the consumer. The chapter entitled, “Traveling Barbie,” covers the timing when Barbie, an American staple, is made available to those in India in the 1980s. This Barbie success is heavily reliant upon the combining of the fashion and beauty industry in India and the transnational “connectivities” made by diasporic Indians. Mattel made a substantial capitalization off of the Barbie because they made the product of American descent, however, dressing it in Indian clothing. The Barbie more so represented those who toured than those who lived there. The women being represented were not women of India, but would make the consumer more comfortable when making the purchase. The Barbie was mainly being sold in locations that tourist frequented. So in a sense the Barbie allowed them to feel it was okay to feel at “home” in India, because she had taken comfort in it. It also allowed for the residents to feel as though they were becoming more globalized with their development, but was this really the case?

            When we read Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, we were exposed to how we, as tourist, view things. It is ideal that a tourist would see the refashioned Barbie in India and find it to be a representation of India, even though it is not of a real Indian woman. What is beneath the sari is what is most familiar to them. The Barbie appearing to be completely at home in India makes India appear as a tourist friendly environment where all tourist are welcome to come and feel at home. These consumers are the tourist in Kincaid’s text, they buy into the generalization of the idea woman without realizing it. They are finding comfort in what they have been conformed to think was the “Barbie” stereotype. These closed-minded ideas do not allow for growth and to truly have Barbie be represented in India the Barbie should not only be dressed as a the part but should also be ethnically the part to represent the remove these women from the years of oppression and under representation they are being forced to endure.