BY: EDITORS
Since March 1959, Barbie became the first sexualized toy marketed to the masses as the paragon of American femininity and wholesomeness. But while Mattel would have little girls believe that Barbie’s origins were Harvard-educated parents and that her childhood was spent in some plastic suburb with streets named after trees, before Barbie became Barbie she was Lilli the German high-end call girl.
In 1952, Hamburg newspaper Bild-Zeitung created Lilli, as a sharp-witted comic character who maintained a glamorous lifestyle by courting rich men. Lilli’s personality was overtly sexual. In one comic-strip Lilli encounters a policeman while walking down the street in her bikini who tells her that two-piece bikinis are illegal. She responds “Oh, and in your opinion, which part should I take off?” The comic expanded into a line of novelty dolls that were marketed to adults in adult toy stores.
When Ruth Handler was on a trip to Germany with her 15-year old daughter Barbara, they came across the dolls, which were becoming wildly popular at bachelor and bachelorette parties. Handler saw the potential of marketing the doll to children, but made a few changes. She removed the sexually suggestive eyebrows and renamed the doll after her daughter. She believed that Barbie could serve as an example to girls on their path to womanhood. In an obituary in The New York Times, she said that she believed that it was important that Barbie had “beautiful breasts” rather than a “flat chest.”
According to creator, Ruth Handler, “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be.”
The nature of that statement is controversial given the proportions of the version of Barbie North America knows and loves. If Barbie were a real person she would have a waist that is four inches thinner than her head, 3.5 inch wrists that would have the strength of soggy cardboard and ankles that would be physically incapable of walking upright. Actually Barbie would have so little body fat that it would be impossible for her to menstruate. Barbie’s proportions compared alongside anorexia show Barbie’s body example of “a 17-year-old” to be not only deadly, but completely impossible.
Over 800 million Barbie dolls have been sold worldwide, and while the dolls have progressed to include women of colour, and professions like doctors and lawyers, the origins and body of Barbie offer a subconscious subjugation of women to girls when their minds are most vulnerable to influence. Barbie not only objectifies the female body, but her origins from a sexualized German comic enforces ideas of patriarchy.
Since a 14-percent drop in Barbie sales last year, Mattel, which is the largest toy company in the United States, attempted to make an update to promote realistic body image and a “broader view of beauty”. Can a socially conscious Barbie outrun her controversial past?
Image Sources: messynessychic.com, firstversions.com, quotesgram.com, watson.ch
