From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Sun Jan 21 2001 - 14:59:20 MST
-------- Original Message --------
From: gkm@petting-zoo.net (glen mccready)
Subject: Barbie.
Resent-From: 0xdeadbeef@petting-zoo.net
To: 0xdeadbeef@petting-zoo.net
CC: bostic@bostic.com
Forwarded-by: Bob Howe <bhowe@pratt.edu>
>From The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 19, 2001
Volume XLVII, Number 19
"A Portrait of the Artist as a Work in Progress"
by Stephen T. Asma
pp. B17-18
(Excerpt)
[Cindy] Jackson is an American woman who, in the past 10 years, has had 29
operations to transform herself into that cultural icon of beauty, the
Barbie doll. When she was 34, her father died and left her a sizable
inheritance, which she straightaway began to invest in her face-to-be. She
had surgery to remove the bags under her eyes, she had implants put into
her cheeks, her chin chiseled, her eyes enlarged, her makeup colors
permanently tattooed, her jaw broken and sawed shorter, and so forth.
Most of my students said there was a significant difference between [French
performance artist] Orlan and Jackson: Both employed the same cutting-edge
medical technology, but while the means were comparable, the ends differed
greatly. When asked why she is reconstructing herself to look like Barbie,
Jackson replies that it is for power: "I used to seek pleasure from men,
and now they seek it from me.... This is the ultimate feminist statement. I
refuse to let nature decide my fate just because I missed out on the
genetic lottery."
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