Mattel versus Fulla

Fulla -- Official Music Songs and Videos --
Fulla vs. Barbie 16apr07

Fulla is a Arabicversion of Barbie but a lot more modest. She has brown-black hair, dark skin, and dresses in a “abaya”. I’ve asked some girls I know if they like Barbie or Fulla more(this was a while ago - none of my friends play with barbies anymore…or do they?…). The reply I got was that they liked Barbie more. “Fulla looks like the girls you see her. Barbie is prettier than Fulla.” Right now it’s Fulla vs. Barbie. Knowing the girls here, my bets on Barbie.
http://www.fulla.us/songs/official-fullasong-en.ram


http://www.fulla.us/


http://www.fulla.us/songs/fulla-furshati.ram


http://www.fulla.us/video/fulla-official-musicvideo-with-subtitles.ram



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Makers Mattel are backing the exhibition which is the work of Italian designer Eliana Lorena.

The auction is part of Barbie celebrations for her 50th anniversary this year. The UK's biggest Barbie fan Angela Ellis, 35, has a collection of more than 250 dolls.
MATTEL ReSeller
'I know Barbie was something seen as bad before as an image for girls, but in actual fact the message with Barbie for women is you can be whatever you want to be.

'I have a Barbie in a wheelchair that was only out for six weeks.'

The mum-of-two's own Barbie collection is set to be displayed at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in 2012.

Barbie was first launched in March 1959 by American businesswoman Ruth Handler. The doll was joined by her long-term boyfriend Ken in 1961.

Rosie Shannon, from Save the Children, said all the proceeds from the auction will go to the charity.

She said: 'We are delighted Sotheby's and the designer chose to auction the burka Barbie dolls for our charity.'

The money will go towards the Rewrite the Future campaign which helps millions of children around the world effected by conflict. [Source unknown]

KABOBFEST -- Sana :: [Excerpt] " ... Time to problematize this assumption. The burqa has several manifestations and is also a pre-Islamic cultural garment, owing itself to Bedouin culture amongst several other tribal cultures across Eastern regions. Regardless of whether or not it is a religious requirement, it has become a part of the vast Islamic culture and is something which has not always been forced. In fact, at various times in various places, it has also served to help women’s engagement in the public sphere. My favourite person in the world Lila Abu-Lughod covers this rather well in her piece Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?:

" ... First, it should be recalled that the Taliban did not invent the burqa, It was the local form of covering that Pashtun women in one region wore when they went out. The Pashtun are one of several ethnic groups in Afghanistan and the burqa was one of many forms of covering in the subcontinent and Southwest Asia that has developed as a convention for symbolizing women’s modesty or respectability. The burqa, like some other forms of “cover” has, in many settings, marked the symbolic separation of men’s and women’s spheres, as part of the general association of women with family and home, not with public space where strangers mingled...
Everywhere, such veiling signifies belonging to a particular community and participating in a moral way of life in which families are paramount in the organization of communities and the home is associated with the sanctity of women ..." (Sana, Today, Ibid)

Toy Monster -- Barbie? What about Labor?

Mattel was the first toy company to take full advantage of modern technology in the Sixties.
Retrieved by Pat Darnell

"...This baby is a monster, it's a toddler..."

Mattel was founded in 1945 by Ruth and Elliot Handler. Until 1959, Mattel was known for the simple and conventional toys that they produced. All this changed with the success of the Barbie Doll (which Ruth designed from the Bild Lily and released in 1959...

"...the Japanese had not understood the subtleties of western sexual iconography..."

The book ["Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel," author Jerry Oppenheimer] alleges that Ryan patronized prostitutes, threw orgies and sought out women who looked like Barbie.
[SOURCE]
Anne Ryan, daughter of Jack Ryan recently said [in an email HERE]..."I am writing to you because I am the daughter of Jack Ryan, creator of the Barbie Doll. Yes, it was he who created her and not Ruth Handler...this has only been a recent claim of hers (i.e. since my father died in 1991). Anyway, I'm just trying to set the record straight...after all, I grew up with Barbie."

Mattel developed cutting-edge toys with the help of master electronic engineer Jack Ryan (who headed a large Research and Development staff). Ryan brought the pull-string, talking voice boxes for Mattel's dolls to the company.

Not the First Claim
Ryan's strange psychodynamics with the doll will be no surprise to those who know their toy history. Ryan always seemed to want Barbie to walk the line between sexy and skanky, and when the prototypes of the doll came back from Japan, he filed off the nipples because, according to The Telegraph, "the Japanese had not understood the subtleties of western sexual iconography."
He also was so enamored with Barbie's pull-string talk boxes that he had some fitted into the stone lions at his Bel Air mansion.
The eponymous Ken doll isn't scandal-free, either. The toy was named after the son of a Mattel founder. According to Oppenheimer, the real-life Ken grew up "humiliated" by the link, and became a closeted gay man who died of complications relating to AIDS.

So What is the Current Event Connection, there MooPig Mug-Wump?

Oh, you know me so well: Solis: Labor Dept. Has ‘Obligation to Restore Trust and Hope’ of Workers
Dear Patrick H,
SUBJECT: Rep. Hilda Solis [Learn more about Rep. Hilda Solis on the AFL-CIO Now blog.
Rep. Hilda Solis, a four-term House member from California's 32nd Congressional District and a true friend of America's workers, appeared today before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in a confirmation hearing on her nomination to be labor secretary. Today, we had an opportunity to hear the first extended discussion of how she plans to return the U.S. Department of Labor to its primary mission of protecting the lives, wages and rights of working people.

Solis is a longtime friend of the labor movement who comes to her understanding of unions and working people naturally—she is the daughter of immigrant working class, union member parents. Her dad was a Teamsters member and shop steward; her mom was an assembly line worker at a Mattel toy factory in Southern California and a member of the United Rubber Workers (since merged into the United Steelworkers).

Here at MooPig, we think the future is in "teaching workers how to vote..." thank you very much. Pat. Pend.