PHOTOS: Life-sized Barbie and Ken struggle in loveless marriage
Dina Goldstein’s latest photo series In The Doll House centres around a life-sized Barbie and Ken dealing with their life together, trapped in a loveless marriage.
Breakfast – Dina Goldstein
‘In the doll house’ examines the less than perfect life of B and K. B is a super doll, the most successful doll in the world. Her partner K is grappling with his sexuality and finds himself in a loveless marriage. He struggles with his position in the household and faces his lack of authenticity.
Something I found interesting was that when I first saw the pictures on Feature Shoot’s RSS feed I saw the headline “Barbie-Inspired Photographs of a Loveless Marriage” and just scrolled on to the photos. As a result I basically ignored Ken and assumed it was just Barbie being affected by this loveless marriage.
Affair – Dina Goldstein
Perhaps it’s a result of growing up on the sharp end of the Mattel marketing machine – you’re supposed to aspire to be Barbie and control Barbie and live out your fantasies via Barbie. I didn’t think it had had much of an effect on me at the time because even then I found dolls creepy. Growing older I realised I must have been an anomaly and that so many people out there loved the pink universe and the perky blonde doll and that many more were conflicted by her. So often there are art projects and photo series’ playing with the idea of this aspirational/compliant/plastic chested woman and her effect on our communal psyche that I utterly forgot to consider the Ken situation.
Bathroom Mirror – Dina Goldstein
You can see the full series on Dina’s site inthedollhouse.net
