Handler's thoughts; don't blame Barbie
All eyes turn to Barbie as she turns 50. Some celebrate her life, in all its fashionable glory while others continue to grumble and mutter. Amidst all this attention, I noticed that people have been increasingly pointing to Barbie's “dubious” origins. And no, I am not talking about the tantalizing Oppenheimer expose. Rather I refer to the muse that sparked Ruth Handler's imagination.
Firstly, let's say it out aloud. Imagine the blonde doll standing up and proclaiming this - “I am Barbie and I was inspired by a German adult toy”. That's right; when pondering about the perfect doll for her little girl, Ruth Handler might have experienced a Eureka moment when she laid eyes on Lilli, a German doll that was rather popular in the adult entertainment department.
If you read a bit about the history and background of this inspiration, it's not really the earth-shattering secret it is made out to be. After all, it was the concept of providing different clothes and accessories to a doll that captured Handler's imagination and not the somewhat sensual background information of Lilli herself. Furthermore, I gather from all accounts of this retelling that Lilli herself probably didn't appear in a suggestive provocative manner in the shop window. Far from it. Keep in mind that it was Lilli's target audience and her actual use (combined with her link to the comic with her namesake) that prompted an 'adult' toy image. Now throw in the fact that, in those days, little girls' dolls were mostly baby-shaped. Thus, if you saw a doll with a full-fledged adult shape, chances are you would assume it was meant for .... a different purpose. So, Lilli, probably looking perfectly innocent in her little perch amidst all her accessories, simply had to look like a grownup and probably didn't even have to don a skimpy outfit.
Sadly, despite all these arguments, the Barbie-has-a-secret-past concept seems to be rather popular. More often than not, I come across an article that states the adult toy link in the following manner;
Barbie revelation = questionable origins = it just goes to show, doesn't it?
That argument does not make sense, does it? Barbie was meant to be a play toy for little girls where they could use it to act out their own stories or whatever it was that little children did for fun those days. How did an indirect connection to a toy with adult entertainment value add up to Barbie promotes ideas of the same kind? This faulty argument of the anti-brigade brings to mind the famous Eddie Izzard joke about executive transvestite. In a nutshell, he points out that a weirdo living in a cave with tons of women's shoes did not represent cross-dressers as a whole.
In the end, it all came down to what Barbie herself meant for young girls – a means to imitate their role models. Whether it was dress up or organizing tea parties, Mattel simply gave little kids a dynamic toy. Barbie merely reflected the changing trends of society as opposed to imposing her own presence on people. An excellent example is this photographic timeline on NPR which depicts Barbies from different eras. I rest my case.
