Oh Barbie, Barbie? Wherefore Art Thou Barbie?
Pink. That’s her favorite color. Pink stilettos. Pink taffeta gowns. Pink handbags. Pink convertibles. Pink everything.
Pretty in Pink. 2009 Holiday Barbie
She’s the envy of women alike with her perfect waist, long legs, shapely torso, flowing hair and perfectly sized tattas. For little girls, the Barbie aisle was princess land. All the dolls, with their perfectly painted faces and dainty outfits peering out from behind plastic cartons. “Pick me! Pick me little one,” they’d whisper. “I’ll teach you to imagine. I’ll teach you to pretend.”
They taught girls to act out the life they dreamed, the life they imagined for themselves outside of being the odd one out on the playground at lunchtime. As a grown up, somehow the doll aisle doesn’t quite evoke the same feelings. Maybe it’s because as a grown up, we’re acting out real life, as ugly as it may be, we’re living it. As a grown up we realize that the life we imagined for ourselves isn’t always the life we end up with. Bills, full-time career and college loans to pay back aren’t exactly something a 10-year-old imagines as she prepares Barbie for her wedding extravaganza. Those things don’t exist in Barbie land. Happily every after is the only vocabulary Barbie knows. Barbie only knows perfect in her perfect pink ball gown, perfect pink slippers and perfect golden hair.
But if hope is what keeps Barbie as the reigning queen of doll sales, then she must be doing something right. Mattel had the right idea when they invented her in the 1950s.
