Barbie has it all. She has the life that the giant shining billboards and the relentless, repetitive television ads tell us we want. She doesn't fight for acceptance because she already belongs.

Is Barbie constructing or constricting femininity? Is she the scapegoat? She embodies all a girl should want or desire. Right now in 2005, Barbie is relegated to the under 10 years old crowd, and graciously makes way for her older sister counterparts - the Hilary Duffs, Ashlee Simpsons and Lindsay Lohans. These young ladies are offering something much more enticing than Barbie can. The imagination realm that Barbie comes alive in, is easily replaced with manipulated uber-teen queen lifestyles full of more permanent ways of maintaining "femininity". We may not be able to brush their hair or put on their make-up, but we can buy their clothing lines and watch their TV shows and see their movies and listen to their CD's. Childish and imaginative storytelling is devoured by a high budget Hollywood vision of a pre-pubescent feminine reality.

These photographs were positioned and lighted as if the subjects were real people with emotion in their eyes and life behind their skin. The pictures were then digitally airbrushed and altered to give them their cinematic supermodel quality. Each photo was purposefully composed to incorporate both something that looks too real to be a Barbie, and too plastic to be real.

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