Image from The Plastic Surgery & Plastic Doctor & Plastic Hospital Office for Barbie
A Twitter campaign has succeeded in having an app that encourages children age nine and over to perform plastic surgery on a cartoon girl removed from Apple and Google’s app stores, but a similar app remains on iTunes.
The game that has been removed from iTunes and Google Play is titled The Plastic Surgery & Plastic Doctor & Plastic Hospital Office for Barbie. It let players use scalpels and syringes on the girl to alter “problem areas”.
The game that is still alive on well on iTunes is Plastic Surgery for Barbara. Its description informs potential players that “Barbara likes to eat a lot of burgers and chocolates and once she found out that she looks ugly … plastic surgeon is going to make operation on her body and face in order to return cute Barbara’s look.”
The description accompanying The Plastic Surgery & Plastic Doctor & Plastic Hospital Office for Barbie carried a similar sentiment: “This unfortunate girl has so much extra weight that no diet can help her.
“In our clinic she can go through a surgery called liposuction that will make her slim and beautiful. We’ll need to make small cuts on problem areas and suck out the extra fat.”
Everyday Sexism, the women’s rights group, took to microblogging site Twitter and posted several tweets about the app, urging users to complain to iTunes and Google Play.
Hundreds of Twitter users retweeted the posts, and deemed the app “disgusting” and “offensive” and even asking if it was real.
Everyday Sexism has tweeted about the presence of Plastic Surgery for Barbara on iTunes, as well, so if reaction to The Plastic Surgery & Plastic Doctor & Plastic Hospital Office for Barbie app is any indication, Plastic Surgery for Barbara will have a very short shelf life.
