A new limited-edition Barbie is raising eyebrows with her punky pink bob and smattering of tattoos. Barbie has had tattoos before, but those were of the temporary butterfly variety and thus decidedly less hardcore. The mild uproar this doll has incurred is to be expected, I suppose. But the objections are unsatisfying on several fronts.
For one thing, the doll is for adult collectors and is apparently not available at toy stores, which mitigates concerns about the doll becoming a role model for children (although this raises some different questions about adults who collect Barbie dolls—but that’s another issue entirely). Besides, Barbie being Barbie, a Tattoo Barbie makes more sense than, say, a stiletto-wearing Church Barbie.
Furthermore, the question—if not the conclusion—of Barbie’s sway as a role model for girls is a given, particularly when it comes to body image. Regardless of whether one grants Barbie a great deal of power in shaping a girl’s self-image or a negligible role, it is certain that a girl (or woman) who wants to imitate the tattooed Barbie would do far less harm to herself in being tattooed than in submitting to the horrific surgery that would be required to sculpt herself into Barbie’s surreal shape. I’m of the school that is a lot less concerned with Barbie’s influence than with the influence wielded by real life role models (including Hollywood starlets). On the other hand, I played with stuffed animals, baby dolls, and Barbies as a girl, and now I love animals, hate abortion, and adore fashion. Perhaps I should reconsider my position on the influence of toys. I guess it’s a good thing I read a lot of books, too. I might have done better with the Anne Bradstreet doll. (True confession: I studied abroad one summer in college, and my Italian housemate told me that I looked like Barbie. It was a number of years before I realized that this wasn’t necessarily the compliment I took it to be.)
A related question when pondering one’s position on a tattooed Barbie is whether or not art imitates life or life, conversely, imitates art. I’d say it’s both. There’s no doubt we are influenced by the images, views, and ideas expressed in art, especially popular forms such as film, television, music videos, and fashion. On the other hand, the makers of Barbie never would have produced such a doll if the cultural values that would make it profitable to do so didn’t already exist.
Ultimately, responses to the tattooed Barbie—as to any cultural artifact—are shaped by our views of culture in general. The church’s understanding of its relationship to culture has a history that is long and varied, as H. Richard Niebuhr has outlined it. And our contemporary understanding greatly needs re-examination, as Andy Crouch argues.
The fact is that not only are we creatures of culture, but God actually designed it this way. If his whole purpose in creating us was only for the eternity we will spend with him, then why did he create earth as a pit stop on the way? Having been placed by God in the midst of human culture, we can’t help reflecting the cultures we are part of. And since Barbie dolls reflect that culture, too, we can learn something from them.
Recently, I stood in a long line in the restroom at the Christian university where I teach. A presidential candidate was there to speak, so a few members of the community were interspersed among the college students. A 40-ish woman clad in a knee-length denim skirt, oversized white sweatshirt, and red neckerchief stood in front of me shaking her head. She asked if I were a faculty member and when I answered affirmatively, she responded, “I’m so grieved” and continued shaking her head. “These students look just like the culture, and I just don’t see anything in the culture worth imitating.” What I wanted to tell her—and did as soon as I could muster up enough love to do so gently—is that we all resemble some form of culture; we can’t help doing so. She in her red-white-and-blue and hair-in-bun reflected Christianity no more and Americana no less than the college woman in front of her in retro Flashdance attire and short-cropped hair.
Like both of these styles, tattoos reflect a slice of contemporary culture unlinked to specific religious practice, which wasn’t always the case for tattoos (or braids, for that matter). Most Christians cite Leviticus 19:28 as the basis for objections to tattoos. The context of the verse is one in which God was calling out his people to be different from the surrounding pagan culture. For the same reason, according to a Christian worker in Egypt I know, Coptic Christians there are expected to have tattoos that signify their Christian belief.
Examining both the text and context of the Levitical prohibition, Pastor John Piper cautions Christians against getting tattoos. As someone who has a couple of tattoos, I agree with his wise exhortation for the believer to examine the motives and effects of tattooing (or other body art) on one’s heart and on the kingdom of God. As Piper says, the Christian’s identity should be radically rooted in Christ—not, I would add, in tattoos or Barbies. And not in body-image, but in the body of Christ.
