Negron-Muntaner/Barbie's Hair

Abstract: A 3 page paper that discusses this essay. A doll seems like an unlikely candidate for controversy. Yet, yet Frances Negron-Muntaner, in her essay "Barbie's Hair," describes how controversy immediately arose when the Mattel Toy Company released a Puerto Rican version of their famous Barbie doll in 1997. Communities, both in Puerto Rico and the mainland US, associated the doll with cultural connotations that involved "Puerto Rican identity" (Negron-Muntaner 39). The author of this provocative essay makes a number of pertinent points about this version of Barbie within the context of popular culture, however, two of the most intriguing points made in the essay are the significance that was attached to the meaning of the doll's hair and how this related to Puerto Rican identity and also how the doll represented a political position in terms of Puerto Rico's place on the world stage. No additional sources cited.

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Catagory: Latin-America / Mixed

Subcatagory: Latin-American & Carribean Studies

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