Perspective: Barbie is 60. And she’s reinventing herself.
Dozens of Barbie dolls at the Toy Fairy in New York last year. The doll turns 60 on Friday. By Rebecca Hains Rebecca Hains Bio Follow Rebecca Hains is professor of media and communication at Salem State University and the author of “The Princess Problem: Guiding Our Girls Through the Princess-Obsessed Years.” She is also editing the anthology"Cultural Studies of LEGO: More than Just Bricks,” scheduled for release next year. March 7 at 6:00 AM Barbie turns 60 on Friday.
“Mattel has always presented a Barbie with an idealized body type and look, but the world is different now,” explains Americus Reed, professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “This is not your mother’s Barbie.” In 2005, at the height of Bratz’s popularity, I interviewed several young African American girls for my book “Growing Up With Girl Power.” Madison, then 9, told me, “I buy Bratz dolls because all of them — all the Bratz dolls are treated right.” And Rhea observed, “For the black Barbie dolls, they give ‘em, like, orange [outfits] and everything before the white, and [for the white] one, they give her, like, pink and blue or something,” she observed.
This meant that black and brown Barbies were no longer merely “dye-dipped” versions of white Barbie, as famously criticized by Ann DuCille in her 1996 book, “Skin Trade.” Though the Fashionistas are racially ambiguous, they offer more nuanced representation than did their predecessors.
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