Barbie? Flat? Come on.
Cats: Uncategorized|You could call the Barbie doll many things. But flat is not one of them.
And yet that is exactly what they were saying about Barbie this week in the business news. Apparently Barbie sales were flat for toy maker Mattel.
On one hand, I say good riddance to this grossly distorted representation of womanhood. What woman looks like that?
On the other hand I resent a bunch suits with MBAs blaming a much-beloved icon of my youth for Q1 flat sales. What do the suits know about Barbie?
Part of me wants to say that Barbie is not real. She’s just a toy onto which girls have projected their imaginations since Barbie’s birth in 1959. Girls don’t want to look like Barbie.
And another part of me hates her for the way she warped expectations of women.
Some girls did want to look like Barbie. And do look like her. I saw them when I went south a few weeks ago - real-life Barbie clones - thin, evenly tanned women with hard, gravity-defying super hooters lounging at the pool or bouncing up and down the beach.
Barbie dolls, if ever I’ve seen one.
So good riddance Barbie. It’s been good knowing you. I think.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I was never allowed to have a Barbie as a kid. My mom hated the idea of them, so I was given Strawberry Shortcake dolls instead. Perhaps that is why I embrace I multitude of hair colours.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:25 am
All of my dolls (Big Jim, Action Man (a.k.a. GI Joe), Stretch Armstrong) died a horrible death. Dismemberment by force or by firecracker was the most common fate, although we developed other imaginative ways to destroy our toys. Lego bricks were the only toys tough enough to survive…but I digress.
As we were all boys in my family we didn’t get to blow up any Barbie dolls…a shame really.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I loved Barbie. But I was the first generation of Barbie girls, before she went all blonde and slutty on us. I don’t think playing with Barbie influenced my self-image one bit (although she probably contributed to my love of baubles and clothes).
April 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I kind of look like my old Cabbage Patch doll. Perhaps I should’ve played with Barbies more often.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I was given a cheap knockoff instead, who promptly went bald when I tried to give her a haircut. Call her a slut if you must, but I’ll bet the real Barbie could have handled a little haircut.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Allison, multi-coloured hair is easier to achieve than Barbie’s body shape. your mother is was smart.
Dick, it really is a shame that you didn’t get to destroy Barbie dolls. You may need counselling.
Beth, by the time I had Barbie she was blond and slutty, but I still loved her.
BeckEye, perhaps you could Photoshop something for us with your face on a cabbage patch doll to give us an impression…
BB, you cut Barbie’s hair. Me too. I did some terrible things to her image and ego. Then there were the limb removals and the decapitations. Ah Barbie was fun.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I’m just trying to remember Barbie world….Ken, Midge, seemed like Barbie had a younger sister…they also had a black Barbie with a separate name….
It always seemed like Ken was Barbie’s gay friend. GI Joe was built to a different scale iirc didn’t really mix with Barbie…
I think the tamer alternative to Barbie was a line of dolls called Tammy…
It is weird, all these modern women filling themselves with plastic so they can look like a plastic doll isnpired by a German sex shop doll.
April 26th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
“What woman looks like that?”
It’s funny that you said in your article that when you went south, you saw women that look like that, when the one woman that best personifies Barbie comes from British Columbia…Pamela Anderson.
Just sayin’.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I was also not allowed to play with Barbie dolls as a kid, they were “dirty” according to mama.
I had a friend in university who told me that she used her mom’s kotex pads as Barbie doll beds. I thought that was simply hysterical.
April 26th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Chance, Midge! I was trying to think of her name. And yes, why do women stuff themselves with a foreign substance that may come back to haunt them some day. The GI Joe thing was later interpreted as home-erotic. Who knows.
WP, right on. Pammy is the ultimate Barbie with human DNA. I don’t know how often she’s in BC these days and for that matter, how much of her is actually Canadian content these days.
yam, kotex as doll beds. That is a scream.
April 27th, 2008 at 6:06 am
“and for that matter, how much of her is actually Canadian content these days.”
Good gravy, I didn’t think of that. Airbag metaphors aside, she’s just like a Japanese or German car; some of her original content was shipped here and then the final assembly was done here.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:24 am
I loved ripping the head off my one and only Barbie, and painting a face on that little nub that remains. Hysterical. Also, my Barbie was a great Olympic gymnast, what with being able to circle her legs around 360 degrees and all.