Real-life Barbies
Jon-Bennet Ramsey
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey (August 6, 1990 – December 26, 1996) was an American child beauty pageant contestant made famous by her murder and the subsequent media coverage. She was found dead in the basement of her parents' home in Colorado, nearly eight hours after she was reported missing. The case is notable in both its longevity and the media interest it has generated in the United States. The case is still unsolved.
JonBenét Ramsey was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but the family relocated when she was nine months old. Her first name is a portmanteau of her father's first and middle names, John Bennett; her middle name is that of her mother, the late Patricia "Patsy" Ramsey, who enrolled her daughter in a variety of different beauty pageants in several states. Patsy Ramsey was a former beauty queen, having held the title Miss West Virginia 1977; her sister became Miss West Virginia 1980. JonBenét held a number of child beauty contest titles, including: America's Royal Miss, Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, Little Miss Charlevoix Michigan, Little Miss Merry Christmas, Little Miss Sunburst, and National Tiny Miss Beauty. JonBenet's mother, Patsy, embellished her child's pageant entry forms by saying the child spoke French and other things to make the child seem more "eligible" for pageant participation.
The unsolved killing of JonBenet in December 1996 put Patsy and John Ramsey, the girl's parents, in the spotlight. JonBenet's beaten and strangled body was found in the basement of the family home in Boulder, Colorado, the day after Christmas. The Ramseys said an intruder committed the crime, but they remained the subject of suspicion and speculation.
JonBenét is buried in Marietta, Georgia, next to her mother, who died in 2006.
OTHER REAL-LIFE BARBIES
Sarah Burge was 46 years old in 2007.
She has spent over $350,000 on cosmetic surgery.
She is known as 'the real life Barbie' and says; "Barbie and I have got a lot in common: we're the same age, both have big breasts and long blonde hair and have changed our body shape over the years." Sarah even likes to dress up as Barbie.
She is a medical aesthetician and her clients come to her for semi-permanent makeup and skin peels.
She is also a mother of three.
Liz Solari is an Argentine model
who was born
in Colombia in 1983.
She worked for Dotto Models
and she also took part
in the programme Showmatch,
dancing for a dream.
In 2008 she performed the role of Barbie
in theatres of Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Brazil.
In her show, Barbie Live, she also sang and danced.
Scenes from Rapunzel and Swan Lake
were recreated in the musical.
REAL-LIFE BARBIE HOTEL SUITES
On 12th July 2004 the Hilton Hotel opened its Barbie room in Argentina. Since then the room has never been empty and has always been occupied by girls who want to share Barbie's magic. Barbie's room (whose number is 538) is on the hotel's fifth floor. The room is equipped with a Barbie telephone, fancy dresses, slippers, towels and toys. The predominant colours are pink and lilac.
To spend the night there costs around 125 dollars and the price also includes a Barbie doll as a present for the girl who stays there. Following the Argentinian example, suites themed after Barbie have also opened in some other hotels around the world such as Madrid (Spain) and Toronto (Canada).
Barbie: From Doll to Cultural Icon
Barbie is a very popular toy doll. It was created by Ruth Handler, who named the doll after her daughter Barbara. When Barbara was a child, her mother saw she would rather play with paper dolls than baby dolls. She also noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. Her mother created the Barbie doll since there were no "adult-looking dolls" at that time.
Barbie has had many sisters, boyfriends, and friends. She has dream houses and clothes. She has many jobs from teacher to doctor to astronaut. Barbie's current boyfriend is Ken, named after Barbara's brother. Barbie's current sister is Kelly. There have been many other dolls like Barbie since Barbie was first produced. The Mattel Toy Company, which manufactures Barbie, also created MyScene dolls, a spoof of Bratz.
In July 1992 Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie, which spoke a number of phrases including "Will we ever have enough clothes?", "I love shopping!", and "Wanna have a pizza party?" Each doll was programmed to say four out of 270 possible phrases, so that no two dolls were likely to be the same. One of these 270 phrases was "Math class is tough!" (often misquoted as "Math is hard"). This phrase led to criticism from the American Association of University Women. In October 1992 Mattel announced that Teen Talk Barbie would no longer say the phrase, and offered a swap to anyone who owned a doll that did The cartoon series The Simpsons parodied the Teen Talk Barbie controversy in their 1994 episode called "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy" Some people believe Barbie gives girls a wrong idea of what they will look like when they grow up.Many believe that the introduction of the Barbie doll was wrong due to the fact that it made young girls think that they had to become skinny in order to be just like Barbie. Since Barbie looks like a teen doll, many girls try to imitate her. Doctors beelieve that girls' attempt to emulate Barbie might lead them to anorexia or bulimia.
However, in December 2005 Dr. Agnes Nairn at the University of Bath in England published research suggesting that girls often go through a stage where they hate their Barbie dolls and subject them to a range of punishments, including decapitation and placing the doll in a microwave oven. Dr. Nairn said: "It's as though disavowing (= repudiating) Barbie is a rite of passage and a rejection of their past."