Consumer Society, Fashion And Barbie Doll

During the 1960s, America entered the so-called "Affluent Society", or "Consumer Society", in which people were surrounded by gradually overwhelming consumer goods everywhere. Then consumption on a large scale has taken systematic role in the economic, cultural, and social landscapes of the nation. Meanwhile, great social changes took place. Culturally, modern hedonism and the pursuit of"self-consciousness"- self-expression and self-gratification began to prevail inthe whole society. It is under this historical background that the thesis aims to make a cultural analysis towards Barbie doll, the typical cultural icon in the late twentieth century America. Drawing upon both McCracken's Meaning Movement Theory and Neo-Gramsican hegemony theory, the thesis aims to analyze in detail how cultural text like Barbie doll is made to mean in the context of American consumer culture and fashion culture. As a fashion plastic doll, Barbie teaches little girls to conform to fashion in consumption. While in playing with fashionable items in Barbie's world,American society's dominant ideology-consumerism is gradually instilled intochildren's minds. Barbie becomes a vivid education for consumption.Thus, from the perspective of Neo-Gramscian hegemony theory, Barbie doll becomes a site of struggle and terrain of negotiation, reflecting the incorporation of American dominant mainstream culture, for instance, consumerism, wealth, capitalism, beauty, success, and so on. Besides, the thesis also intends to illustrate that: Popular culture items are what people make from the commodities or commodified practices supplied by the culture industries. There is an interacting and dialectic relationship between the process of production and consumption. To be "subject" or not, it's consumer's own choice. Finally, the thesis aims to point out that people in consumer society should take a critical attitude towards popular cultural items so as to live an examined life.