NPR: Pretty, Plastic Barbie: Forever What We Make Her
Barbie is turning 49 this year and so am I. Too frightening — really. She still looks better in a swimsuit than I ever did in my lifetime. NPR has a great podcast and accompanying article. Here are some interesting excerpts:
The first version was based on a German doll named Bild Lilli. She, in turn, had been inspired by a cartoon character with a fondness for sugar-daddies.
“They basically copied the face,” Blitman explains. “So it’s very hard. I mean, this is not the face of a 17-year-old. This is the face of a 40-year-old woman who’s seen a lot of action.”
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Orenstein thinks the fact that Barbie is stubbornly amorphous may explain one of the more common activities that children engage in with Barbie: torturing her.
Orenstein says a friend told her about a child who lined her Barbies up in the driveway, then had her mother drive over them.
I don’t remember torturing Barbie but I did stuff one of her dresses to make her look pregnant.
My first Barbie wasn’t a Barbie at all but her best friend Midge (she had red hair). My older sister got the blond Barbie. I was jealous even though Midge looked friendlier. I remember having a Twist-n-Turn Barbie with bendable legs – that’s the one that got pregnant.
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Tags: Barbie, icon, toy, doll, Mattel, childhood, collectables, NPG, podcast
March 12, 2008 at 7:09 am
Do you remember Skipper? The little sister? She seemed to keep better than my headless Barbies with their dreadlocks! I think I washed their hair too much. It was so hard to fit them into their cars with their unbendable legs. I don’t think I ever got a Twist-n-Turn Barbie – but glad someone finally thought of that!
I saw they now have a “breast cancer Barbie”. I wonder if they have menopause Barbie. I have ideas about that one…..
March 12, 2008 at 9:35 am
I do remember Skipper. Regina had one and I got Skipper’s friend Scooter. Do you remember the little seen Growing Up Skipper? Crank her arm and she sprouted breasts, grew taller and had hips. How weird, huh?
March 15, 2008 at 1:40 am
The arm cranking sounds bizarre! I remember reading somewhere (the Net, maybe?!) that Barbie’s proportions are all out of whack – in real life she’d be a 7 or 8 foot monster LOL.