Barbie’s 40... and still here. Why?
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| Grant Stone and friends |
Mr Stone’s relationship with Barbie got serious about nine years ago when he gave a series of successful lectures about children and the media, in which he explored how advertising sells things to children.
“I used a Barbie doll as an example because I had young girls at the time and they had Barbies.”
Since then the Barbie issue has fascinated him and has become the subject of research for his PhD.
“I wanted to know why Barbie was successful”.
The working title of his thesis is Barbie - An Ecology of Popular Culture.
With a background in science (he did an honours degree many years ago in plant genetics), Mr Stone has likened the preponderance of Barbies to that of a successful species in nature.
A biological scientist could see the importance of looking at the abundance and distribution of Barbies, her subtle adaptations through the generations and the many “people” and various paraphernalia that support the whole “Barbie Universe” (as the manufacturer Mattel calls it.)
“It’s not simply a matter of marketing that has kept her popular,” said Mr Stone. “She is so abundant world-wide that Mattel are now in protect-mode to ensure her survival.”
This has involved defending the trade mark and the community image of Barbie where it has been threatened.
In addition to the science of Barbie and her world, there are many perspectives on the political and cultural significance of the toy that was modelled on the mid-1950s Lill Doll in Germany - a doll for adults that sprang from a cartoon character in a German men’s sporting newspaper.
Much has been made of her unrealistic physical dimensions - long legs, tiny waist and big breasts.
“She’s an 18 or 19-year-old girl - after 40 years, she’s still 18 or 19. Her body is not a representation of reality, but a fantastic representation of an ideal.”
Mr Grant said Barbie embodied the youthful, sporty goddess of the Greek tradition - a Diana or Athena.
Barbie was test marketed before her release in the US in 1959.
“Kids loved it. The mothers hated it. They didn’t want that voluptuous and beautiful and sexual thing in the house in front of their daughters and husbands,” said Mr Stone.
Barbie provided a representation of white middle class America, but she challenged the 1950s get-married-and-stay-at-home mores of the day by being an air hostess or fashion model or secretary - “an independent woman, with independent means.” Here’s another contradiction - she can’t physically stand on her own two feet without her accompanying high heels!
Through the decades Barbie and her “friends” have reflected the times.
“For instance, as more black people emerged in middle class America, we saw Barbie acquire black neighbours in the 1960s,” said Mr Stone.
When the Berlin Wall came down, Barbie dolls and Levi jeans were the most sought after consumer items.
Following the “Desert Storm” war in Kuwait, a Kuwaiti religious leader declared a fatwah (death sentence) against Barbie dolls as an attempt to purge the influence of American values on his country.
And she’s been to the moon (a moon-Barbie series was released - in 1966 - three years before Neil Armstrong got there).
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