Doll

She turns fifty-eight years old today, but looks as young as ever, although she is only as spry as molded plastic will allow. She is the Barbie doll. Not unlike the American Girl dolls, Barbie has a back story, albeit, from what I found, much shorter. She hailed from the fictional community of Willow, Wisconsin. Although some have changed the narrative for her to be from New York state.  Until I wrote this post I did not know Barbie had an associated home town, much less it being in Wisconsin.  How did a girl from a small town Wisconsin turn out so successful? And with success comes negative comments and derision. Barbie, in that sense, is like a celebrity in her own right. As well she should be, as of 1959 more than 800 million have been sold, and with related merchandise it brings in over one billion dollars annually for Mattel.

Ruth Handler,

Barbie was the brain child of Ruth Handler, who was a co-founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband, and a business partner in 1945. The doll is named after Ruth’s daughter.  Ruth noticed that her then young daughter shoved the baby or childlike dolls aside and would play make-believe using paper dolls of adult women. Ruth’s creation was not original as she used a doll based on a German comic strip character as her model. Mattel bought the rights to that German doll named Lilli, and Barbie was born. The German doll, Lilli, was originally a racy gag gift for men visiting tobacco shops.If the backstory was one of being in a brothel, it would suggest much as to persistent claims that Barbie is, well rather promiscuous. She is a doll for goodness sake, who has no moral compass or direction except that provided by the child handler, or those who wish to make some comment.  The comments say less about Barbie and more about the state of mind of the person making the comment.   The original doll, marketed in 1959 was priced at $3, and over 300,000 were sold the first year.  Mattel used a captive audience with their advertising on the Mickey Mouse Club television show, to spur the doll to fame. Their main demographic group were girls in the 3 to 6 year old range.  In 1961 she added Ken Carson to the collection (the first name taken from Handler’s son) later a best friend of Barbie, and a sister for Barbie. I recall Barbie having a preference for convertibles, not to mention glitz and glamour. The lifestyle attributed to Barbie seems a long way from that one would experience in a rural Wisconsin community.  How else can one think of Willow, other than rural.  Maybe it was like Winneconne.

Barbie

For some reason girls seem fascinated by horses, and Barbie’s first pet was a horse named Dancer. Was her desire for a horse related to her small town upbringing in Wisconsin?  Barbie has been attributed to a variety of careers, A Renaissance women. Depending upon a source of information she has been associated with either 108 or 180 career types, with many in non-traditional female rolls. Barbie did not have a glass ceiling. She was a pilot, doctor, astronaut, and an Olympic Athlete. Getting into stereotyping, I could see her as a beach volleyball player. Much controversy she generates is in regard to appearance, particularly when magnified to human proportion. Her measurements are said to associate to 36-18-35 are often derided with claims of harm to young girls, but no one seems to talk about her extraordinary height of over 7 feet—now there is a volleyball, or perhaps basketball, player. The comments made of Barbie and her measurements only seems to fuel the controversy of seeing females in regard to such statistics. Why cannot Barbie be viewed as what she is—a plastic molded doll?  I never had the abs or muscles of GI Joe doll (or Ken, for that matter, but I have not dwelled on that fact.

Barb Handel Segal, 

Referring to a women as a Barbie, can go both ways. Looking at varied websites, some say it a complement, others a derogatory remark of a banal, dumb blond; in a way such criticisms enhance stereotypes. Although, all web sites seem to agree that if a women refers to another women as a “Barbie” it is not a complement. Some say, since she is predominantly blond, it exacerbates the stereo-types of blonds. The doll is what people make of it. Certainly the use of the word doll is generally meant as a positive, although it seems to be going out of favor (probably due to some latent sexism). Think of the phrase, “Would you be a doll and set the table.”

Ken Carson Doll

Barbie would go on to lead the fast life in California. Her Malibu beach house is said, if it were real, to be valued at $16 million. But, I guess when you are responsible for over billion dollars annually for a company, you can well afford the fast California life-style. Forty-eight years later and Barbie doll sales are still strong. This shows me that Ruth Handler devised a product that not only hit a cord with girls of the later part of the baby boom generation (my wife owned one, and I know at least one of my sisters did too), but with subsequent generations. Barbie has staying power, and prestige. Not bad for a lady who hailed from Willow, Wisconsin.

And to think I could have written about the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack.  Does anyone know the significance of that battle?

Images from Google images