We’re thinking maybe photographer Mariel Clayton didn’t get to play with Barbies as a child. Because, as an adult, the self-taught lenswoman has taken America’s favorite doll into some pretty strange territory with “Bad Barbie,” a series of images that range from the erotic (Barbie approaching Ken with a strap-on, two Kens slipping into a bubble bath together), to the very, very fucked up (Ken’s head in the fridge, Ken’s body crammed in the fireplace, Ken’s bullet-riddled corpse on the living-room floor.) These are dolls, but many shots venture into NSFW territory. (We tried to pick some of the less gruesome ones for this slideshow.)
On her Facebook page, Clayton defends her unique art: “I’m not a man-hater, I wasn’t abused as a child, I’m not ‘dark’ or ‘disturbed’ or ‘mentally scarred’… I just find certain things funny.”
o
If she finds drowning a baby to death funny, something’s wrong with her.
Jonathonz
Personally I find these to be totally awesome! The great thing about art is that it allows us to let our imaginations run wild. To me, there’s a big difference between actually committing these acts (the murder, not the sex!) and portraying them in art. The fact that these are Barbie just makes them cute and funny. The detail in these is amazing. She’s obviously spent a lot of time getting these together and I love seeing that. I only wish the photos were bigger so I could see more!
o
I think the detail is strange, it’s another reason to think there’s something wrong with her. She’s “wrong” in the head, but not like a normal person.
SpireaX
Roll with it, “o”. Sometimes, a warp imagination is just that…imagination. Besides “normal” is overrated.
o
Ah, no, what I said is that she’s wrong in a way that’s different from the way a normal person is wrong. A normal brain and an abnormal one can both go wrong. Something about her brain is wired differently.
Henry
I think it’s problematic to put normal in quotes. After all, some brains are abnormal. Some are even inferior, like psychopathic brains. But making a distinction between abnormal and inferior might be a bad thing – for someone who wants to think the inferior is the abnormal.
o
@Henry: That’s right, a person with a genius intellect is abnormal, but he’s not inferior. A genius might be slated for execution, ostensibly for being abnormal, because all the people around him are far too stupid to understand that he’s superior to them. It’s happened many times in history.
Henry
@o: I tend to think that it will take two decades for the average mind to catch up to the genius in terms of personal maturity, and many generations to catch up in terms of intellect. The later generations will only be making borrowed advances, and no average mind within that generation will ever have an identical ability with the genius. That’s why even the generational equivalence is an illusion. It’s almost as if the genius lives outside of the species.
o
@Henry: But not only geniuses are abnormal.
Henry
No, they’re not the only ones. People with all sorts of disabilities and handicaps are also abnormal. People with harmless differences are abnormal too. Many of these people are thoroughly crippled in one way but better than the normal person in another, which is to say that no person is useless for having a handicap. However, the human trash who talk about degeneracy never realize that. They are authentically inferior.
o
@Henry: You might say that the human trash say all handicaps are equal like Protestants say all sins are equal. They share the quality of compressing human experience.
Paco
I love this. It’s a great destruction of a popular female icon. She breaks down our preconception of the Barbie and makes it dark, twisted, begging the question “what does Barbie do when she’s not being played with?”
sam
Why the heck is everyone assuming that this woman is “abnormal” or disturbed simply because of these art pieces? These are hilarious! Barbie walking in on Ken shaving his chest? That expression on his face? PRICELESS!
They’re very well done. The poses are remarkable. The one where Kelly has shot Ken dead, and Barbie’s just chillaxing looking at the corpse (something Mattel never expected anyone to write) is funny as heck because of the way Barbie has been posed.
Having “disturbing” material in your art is not a signt hat there’s anything wrong with the artist.
xander
Many visual artists have toyed around with Barbie, [per ye-olde-Google] but of the images I’ve seen on line or in person, I did find these among the most creative and compelling.
She’s like a descendent of (recently passed) Louise Bourgeois, who work was also deemed ‘twisted’ and ‘deranged’.
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A.
if amazing eye for detail,can be called “abnormal” then I suppose she is, but just like many other things, normal is defined by society.
MikeE
Wait, haven’t I already seen all of this on Robot Chicken?