If I were a writer for The Onion (my dream job!), this would be my report.
Photo via Barbie Bits & Pieces
Barbie: The Torture Story
With opinion surveys about torture steadily making the news lately, it seems that children too have succumbed to this "It's OK, I'm OK" mentality. Barbie torture has become mainstream in British children. Shocking photos have recently surfaced.
The strange actions prompted an investigation by the Marketing and Psychology Departments at the University of Bath. "The girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a 'cool' activity," said one of the University of Bath researchers. "The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving."
On Tuesday, a local reporter asked Sally, from the girl's study, about this latent Barbie hostility. "Frankly, I think all of us are disappointed by the actions of the few,” says Sally. “Every day, we love our Barbie, but frankly, some days a lot of us obviously feel she just needs a good microwaving to set things straight again."
For further proof that females are just flat-out insane from birth, boys, generally seen as the violent bunch, expressed genuine affection and nostalgia for their Action Man figures (the British equivalent of G.I. Joe).
Researchers found that the girls, just like men, thought of Barbie and her flesh-and-blood prototypes as "inanimate objects" rather than real human beings. Even more shocking was the news that parents sometimes encouraged this behavior. Sally added, "Sometimes I'm just playing with my Barbies calmly on the living room floor, and my mom walks in and says, 'Don't you think it would be fun to set her on fire and watch her perfect, pointy breasts and her tiny little waistline slowly disintegrate into smoldering goo?'"
A Barbie spokesperson said that despite the findings of "this very small group of deeply disturbed psychopathic children and the parents that raised them, we know that there are millions of girls in the U.K. and across the world that love and enjoy playing with Barbie like normal human beings and will continue to do so in the future. These sick children and their parents need our help, not our scrutiny." The Barbie spokesperson also added that the doll remained "the number one fashion brand" and they didn't care what the hell people did with it as long as they buy it.
