« Barbie, miroir de son temps »

« Barbie, miroir de son temps » s’inscrit dans la découverte des 4 thèmes étudiés au cours du cycle terminal en classe de première et de terminale en langues : mythes et héros, espaces et échanges et enfin, lieux et formes du pouvoir.
Nous souhaitons présenter l’histoire de Barbie lors d’une prochaine exposition au CDI afin de mettre en lumière l’impact de cette poupée iconique sur ’évolution du rôle de la femme, l’image puissante de la féminité dominant les médias, la représentation de la place des loisirs dans la société et sa démocratisation, le progrès de la diversité culturelle à travers la création de nouvelles poupées, le rapport avec le monde du spectacle, du divertissement, de la mode. Barbie, une source d’inspiration pour la culture populaire, l’éducation et les préjugés qui y sont liés…
En attendant de tout mettre en place, nous vous souhaitons bonne lecture !
S.Godin, professeur d’anglais

Barbie’s exhibition
By Emy Lecoffe, P7S

On Thursday, September 15th, we went to Paris to see the Barbie’s exhibition at "Les Arts décoratifs" museum.
When we arrived, a flashy pink wall opened the exhibition.
The exhibition started with in a room diving into the dark with a screen where a lot of pictures of Barbie were shown. And at the same time, several showcases with a Barbie doll lit up from time to time.
Then, we saw some showcases with dolls that showed the evolution of the doll throughout the decades.
In the next rooms, the guide told us the story of the creation and evolution of Barbie ; we saw her evolution like, for example, a showcase with the evolution of Barbie’s body that showed us the different morphologies that the Barbie has.
Then, we saw all the jobs of Barbie : in all, she performed more than 155 jobs.
Upstairs, we saw mock up in where dolls were staged like in movies.
Then, there was a collection’s Doll created by fashion designers, such as Louboutin : it proves that Barbie follows the trend.
And also, we saw dolls tribute to celebrities, like Diana Ross.
In the next room, there was a screen with an extract of a talk-show where a woman had some makeup just like Barbie, and also Aqua’s song : "Barbie Girl".
A showcase showed us that Barbie is a mirror of her time. For example, in this showcase, we saw Barbie dressed as a hippie.
Some artists’ works were exhibited and some showed sexism and the fact that the models are too much photoshoped in magazines.
We discovered lots of Barbie’s clothes in human size.
In the final room, the walls were covered by rainbow of Barbie’s clothes with about 7000 items.

P7 et Professeurs accompagnateurs : Mme Godin (anglais) & Mme Vecchies (français)

Barbie
Barbie is the most famous toy in the world. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, a boyfriend named Ken… a passion for shopping…fashion… there were the only words that we linked to Barbie. But that was before the exhibition.
That allowed us to realize that we didn’t really knew her. To change that, we decided to go to meet her in an exhibition about her and her life.
We met the teacher a half past eight at the train station in Pontoise as the tour started at 10am in the museum of les Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
A guide explained us a lot of things during a hour and a half She told us the story of the creation of Barbie and after that, she explained to us Barbie’s private life, her relationship, her friends and professional career.
In 1950, a doll called Lily was created in German comics ; she had blond hair and blue eyes and she was fan of fashion. In 1959, Barbie was born thanks to Ruth and Elliot Handler, creators of Mattel (a brand of games for children) in honour of their daughter Barbara.
Barbie and Ken met during a press conference and they fell in love. They got together but a few years later they broke up and Barbie started a relationship with Blaine. Ken saw Barbie on a dating site and managed to reconquer her. So she got back with Ken.
Barbie has a big sister and she has as important role in the family. Barbie shows therefore she was able to live with her time and showed children that everything is possible and to never abandon your dreams…

P13 et Professeurs accompagnateurs : Mme Corbacho (espagnol), Mme Eyffert (documentaliste) &Mme Godin (anglais)