Week 4

During this week I was very interested in the verity of comic options. The first comic I had selected was Barbie and Ken. I knew that Barbie was a real person, the success of the doll franchise, and the origin of the iconic name, but I never knew that Barbie had her own story line in a comic book. My expectations of this comic book were to see Barbie as empowering. I wanted to see Barbie as someone more than one of those fictional characters that depend on the man to save her in every story. Basically one could say that I was reading this comic from a feminist’s point of view. I was disappointed, though entertained with the stories. The Barbie series kind of reminded me of those popular women’s television shows such as Desperate Housewives, or Sex in the City, except that the audience was intended for young girls. Instead of getting that powerful woman I expected, there was drama and gossip between the characters. When you think of the context of “Barbie”, this would be the way that little girls played with they’re doll by interpreting drama, love stories, and an imagination of a fantasy world that they would want to live in one day. The more I thought of the situation through that context, the more I understood the style of the comic and stories.