Meet Fulla… Arab Barbie

Fulla was created by a United Arab Emirates toy company and is designed to be a “global doll”, not necessarily a “Muslim doll”.

Fulla of course looks nothing like the blonde-haired, big-breasted Barbie (that Westerners know and love). She does not own a bikini, instead opts for an abaya – a long, black robe – fully covering her body. Barbie’s golden tanned skin is replaced with Fulla’s caramel skin, chocolate eyes, jet-black hair and there is certainly no DD’s (the booby kind not the batteries).

Barbie doesn’t seem to make the cut in this multi-cultural world we live in. African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American dolls have all been introduced of late in order to meet the demands of different religions, races and cultures.

In the Middle East, Fulla outsells Barbie and seems to take the opposite approach of Barbie. Fulla “respects her parents” and asks “girls to take pride in themselves and not dress for boys and be the sex symbols that other dolls tend to be.” That is according to Fulla’s creators NewBoy.

Even if a child has a Fulla doll and realises that women shouldn’t be sex symbols, said child can still turn on MTV and see women like The Pussycat Dolls whoring themselves around. Dolls are only one object that children are exposed to. I don’t think there is anything wrong with Barbie, despite her unrealistic proportions. Unless parents decide to take away the TV, DVD’s, Internet, magazines and countless other media communications, children will always be influenced to some degree by what they see. But then again, it’s just a doll.