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Barbie is a best-selling doll launched at the American International Toy Fair on March 9, 1959. The doll is produced by Mattel, Inc. Barbie dolls and related accessories are manufactured to approximately 1/6th scale.

Development

During the 1950s Ruth Handler, creator of the Barbie doll, noticed that her daughter Barbara preferred to play with dolls that resembled adults rather than infants. Realizing that there was a gap in the market, Ruth Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel's directors.

During a trip to Germany with her daughter, Ruth Handler discovered a German doll called the Bild Lilli doll in a shop window. The adult-figured Lilli doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitung. Lilli was a fashionable society girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adult men in bars and tobacco shops, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately. On her return to the United States, Handler reworked the design of the doll (with help from engineer Jack Ryan) and the doll was given a new name, Barbie, after Handler's daughter Barbara. The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. This date is also used as Barbie's official birthday. Mattel acquired the rights to the Bild Lilli doll in 1964 and production of Lilli was stopped. The first Barbie doll wore a black and white zebra striped swimsuit and signature topknot ponytail, and was available as either a blonde or brunette. The doll was marketed as a "Teen-age Fashion Model", with her clothes created by Mattel fashion designer Charlotte Johnson. One of the key changes in Barbie's design took place in 1971 when the sideways-glancing eyes of the original doll were adjusted so that the eyes glanced forwards. Today the Barbie doll is a $1.9 billion a year industry, with Mattel claiming that three Barbie dolls are sold every second. Barbie products include not only the doll with its clothes and accessories, but also a huge range of Barbie branded goods such as books, fashion accessories and video games. Barbie has appeared in a series of animated films and makes a brief guest appearance in the 1999 film Toy Story 2. Almost uniquely for a toy fashion doll, Barbie has become a cultural icon and has been given many honors that are rare in the toy world. In 1974 a section of Times Square in New York City was renamed Barbie Boulevard for a week, while in 1985 the artist Andy Warhol created a painting of Barbie.

Biography

Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts, and over the years she has been given many companions, the best known being her beau Ken (Kenneth Carson), who made his debut in 1961. Barbie and Ken have a famous on-off relationship and they announced a split in 2004 which seems to have been only temporary. Other longstanding friends in Barbie's ethnically diverse social circle include Hispanic Teresa, African American Christie and Steven (Christie's boyfriend), and Kayla. For a full list of Barbie's companions, see the List of Barbie's friends and family.

According to the Random House novels of the 1960s, her parents' names are George and Margaret Roberts of Willows, Wisconsin. Barbie has been said to attend Willows High School in Willows, Wisconsin and Manhattan International High School in New York City (based on the real-life Stuyvesant High School).

Barbie has thirty-eight recorded pets, including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra. She has owned pink convertibles, trailers, jeeps and more. She also holds a pilot's license, and operates commercial airliners when not serving as a flight attendant.

Controversies

Barbie's popularity ensures that her effect on the play of Western children attracts a high degree of scrutiny. The criticisms leveled at her are often based on the assumption that children consider Barbie a role model and will attempt to emulate her.

• In September 2003 the Middle Eastern country of Saudi Arabia outlawed the sale of Barbie dolls, saying that she did not conform to the ideals of Islam. The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stated "Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful." In Middle Eastern countries there is an alternative doll called Fulla who is similar to Barbie but is designed to be more acceptable to an Islamic market. Fulla is not made by the Mattel Corporation. In Iran, Sara and Dara dolls are available as an alternative to Barbie.

• The word "Barbie" has come to be used as a derogatory slang term for a girl or woman who is considered stupid, most famously in the song "Barbie Girl". In 1992 Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie, which spoke a number of phrases including "Will we ever have enough clothes?", "I love shopping!", and "Wanna have a pizza party?" Each doll was programmed to say four out of 270 possible phrases, so that no two dolls were likely to be the same. One of these 270 phrases was "Math class is tough!" Although only about 1.5% of all the dolls sold said the phrase, it caused a public outcry.

• One of the commonest criticisms of Barbie is that she promotes an unrealistic idea of body image for a woman, leading to a risk that women who attempt to emulate her will become anorexic. Critics have argued that for a woman to have Barbie's body, she would need to be 7 feet 2 inches tall, weigh 115-130 pounds, have 30 to 36 inch hips, an 18 to 23 inch waist and a 38 to 48 inch bust. Additionally, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate. In 1997 Barbie was redesigned and given a wider waist, with Mattel saying that this would make the doll better suited to contemporary fashion designs.

• "Colored Francie" made her debut in 1967, and she is sometimes described as the first African American Barbie doll. However, she was produced using the existing molds for the Caucasian Francie doll and lacked correct ethnic features other than a dark skin. The first African American doll in the Barbie range is usually regarded as Christie, who made her debut in 1968. Black Barbie and Hispanic Barbie were launched in 1980.

• In 1997 Mattel joined forces with Nabisco to launch a cross-promotion of Barbie with Oreo cookies. Oreo Fun Barbie was marketed as someone with whom little girls could play after class and share "America's favorite cookie." As had become the custom, Mattel manufactured both a white and a black version. Critics argued that in the African American community Oreo is a derogatory term for a person like the chocolate sandwich cookie itself, meaning that the person is black on the outside and white on the inside. The doll was unsuccessful and Mattel recalled the unsold stock, making it sought after by collectors.

Parodies and lawsuits

Barbie has often been referenced in popular culture and is frequently the target of parody. Some of these occasions include:

• In 1997 The Danish pop-dance group Aqua released a song called Barbie Girl. It contained lyrics such as "You can brush my hair/Undress me everywhere" and used graphics similar to the pink Barbie logo. Mattel argued that this constituted a trademark infringement and filed a defamation lawsuit on September 11, 1997. The lawsuit was dismissed on May 15, 1998.

• A commercial by automobile company Nissan featuring dolls similar to Barbie and Ken driving in a toy car was the subject of another lawsuit in 1997.

• Saturday Night Live aired a parody of Barbie commercials featuring the fictional "Gangsta Bitch Barbie" doll and a "Tupac Ken" doll.

• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno displayed a fictional "Barbie Crystal Meth Lab" which mocked how Barbie usually has a career that is "in keeping with the times or in this case, in keeping with society's current problems."

• Malibu Stacy is a parody of Barbie in the cartoon series The Simpsons. In the episode 'Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy' Lisa is disgusted by the "sexist drivel spouted by Malibu Stacy", leading her to market an alternative "Lisa Lionheart".

• In 2002 a judge refused an injunction against Susanne Pitt, who had produced a doll called Dungeon Barbie which showed the doll in bondage clothing, stating "To the court's knowledge, there is no Mattel line of S&M Barbie."

• In 1999 Mattel sued the artist Tom Forsythe over a series of pictures that he had produced called "Food Chain Barbie", which included a picture of a Barbie doll in a blender. Mattel lost the lawsuit and was ordered to pay $1.8 million in costs to Mr. Forsythe.

See also: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.

Collecting

Mattel estimates that there are well over 100,000 avid Barbie collectors. Ninety percent are women, at an average age of 40, purchasing more than 20 Barbie dolls each year. Forty-five percent of them spend upwards of $1000 a year. While the original Barbie sold for $3.00 in 1959, a mint boxed Barbie from 1959 sold for $3552.50 on eBay in October 2004.

On September 26, 2006, a Barbie doll set a world record at auction of 9,000 pounds sterling (US $17,000) at Christie's in London. The doll was a Barbie in Midnight Red from 1965 and was part of a private collection of 4,000 Barbie dolls being sold by two Dutch women, Ietje Raebel and her daughter Marina.

Barbie versus Bratz

In 2001 MGA Entertainment launched the Bratz range of dolls, a move that would give Barbie her first serious competition in the fashion doll market. In 2004 sales figures showed that Bratz dolls were outselling Barbie dolls in the United Kingdom, although Mattel maintained that in terms of the number of dolls, clothes and accessories sold, Barbie remained the leading brand. In 2005 figures showed that sales of Barbie dolls had fallen by 30% in the United States, and by 18% worldwide, with much of the drop being attributed to the popularity of Bratz dolls.

See also

• Barbie syndrome
• Barbie Mini Kingdom

Further reading

• Lord, M.G., Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll. Paperback ISBN 0-8027-7694-9.
• Rogers, Mary F., "Barbie Culture". Paperback ISBN 0-7619-5888-6.
• Knaak, Silke, "German Fashion Dolls of the 50&60". Paperback www.barbies.de.
• Beckham, Victoria (Foreword), John, Elton (Foreword), The Art of Barbie. Paperback ISBN 0-9537479-2-1
• Essays, Guys'n'dolls: Art, Science, Fashion & Relationships. Paperback ISBN 0-948723-57-2

External links

• The Official Barbie Website — Owned By Mattel
• New York Times: "The Barbie Way of Knowledge" by Dave Cullen
• Washington Times: "Religious police take after Barbie" by Paul Martin
• St. Petersburg Times Floridian: "The doll that has everything - almost", an article about the "Muslim Barbie" by Susan Taylor Martin
• Salon.com: "The Littlest Harlot" by Tracy Quan
• "Renaissance Woman: Artist, Inventor, Developer" -- interview with an ex-Barbie designer first published in Fashion Doll Quarterly

• Barbie
• Fashion doll
• Playscale figures