Remember picking out your first Barbie?
Back then, you probably couldn't imagine the scrutiny the doll has experienced over the
years.
From the origin of her name to her bizarre proportions, here are some things you probably
didn't notice about Barbie when you were a kid, but that are almost impossible to ignore
now that you're saving for your own dreamhouse.
Did you ever think about where the name Barbie came from?
After all, there's a good chance you didn't know any other Barbies growing up.
The name is uncommon enough that maybe you thought Barbie was just what that specific
doll was called and not a name at all.
But the name Barbie used to be more common.
It's actually short for Barbara.
And according to the Social Security Administration's record of top baby names, Barbara was the
third most common name for girls born between 1930 and 1949.
By 1959, the year the Barbie doll was invented, the name Barbara was still in the top ten
— number six to be exact.
And one of those girls was the daughter of Barbie creator and Mattel founder Ruth Handler.
In an interview, Handler admitted she was Barbie's "creator" in more ways than you may
realize.
“I knew I had to name the doll after my daughter who had really inspired the entire project.”
So we named the doll Barbie.”
As you now know, Barbie is nearly 59 years old.
What's her secret to looking so young?
Plastic surgery.
Tons and tons of plastic surgery.
Sean Fitzgerald, vice president of corporate communications for Mattel, told the San Francisco
Chronicle that between 1959 and 1997, Barbie went through three new faces, received bendable
knees and elbows, and even an opposable thumb.
In the fall of 1998 came even more radical plastic surgery: smaller hips, reduced bust
size, wider waist, and flat feet.
Barbie also stopped smiling with teeth in favor of a closed-mouth grin and her luscious
locks became straighter and more three-dimensional as different shades were incorporated.
Why all the changes?
Fitzgerald explained that it all came down to the target audience of girls aged three
to eleven:
"They wanted Barbie to be cooler.
They wanted Barbie to be more reflective of themselves."
It might be hard to imagine that preschoolers would picture themselves as young adult Barbies,
but nevertheless, Fitzgerald explained the physical changes of Barbie is "part of the
doll's history."
Both before and after her extensive plastic surgery in the late 1990s, Barbie's body never
really made any sense.
Galia Slayen, author of the Huffington Post article "The Scary Reality of a Real-Life
Barbie Doll," actually made a full-scale replica of Barbie.
It all started with two pieces of wood.
After hammering them together, she had a stick figure frame that was roughly six feet tall.
Using balloons and paper mâché for Barbie's bust and solely paper mâché for her skin,
Barbie came to life.
Slayen wrote,
"We created a body that wasn't much thicker than a stick figure, but had the womanly and
unattainable curves and proportions that impressionable young girls idealize...She stands about six
feet tall with a 39" bust, 18" waist, and 33" hips."
While Slayen's Barbie replica fits comfortably in a size 00 mini skirt, the average American
woman wears a size 16-18..
Slayen went on to add even more frightening statistics about Barbie's proportions in her
article.
Because of Barbie's incredibly low Body Mass Index, she would fit the criteria for being
anorexic.
In addition, due to her disproportionate features, she would also need to walk on all fours!
You can admit it.
You cut your Barbie's hair just to see what would happen, didn't you?
It's okay, we've all been there.
Sadly, as it turns out, her hair just doesn't grow back.
Barbie's hair is synthetic, made from either a fiber called Kanekalon or a type of plastic
called hollow saran.
Her hair is rooted differently, making her locks more voluminous, even before styling.
Stephen Tarmichael, Barbie's official hairdresser since 1988, creates a prototype and then ships
it overseas with step-by-step styling photos.
Tarmichael is also responsible for making sure Barbie's hair is en vogue, which is challenging
considering all hairstyles are selected a year before the doll is expected to arrive
at toy stores.
With her physique, her professionally styled hair, and her responsible-sounding name, you
would think Barbie would have no problem finding steady work.
No such luck, it seems.
Sure, Barbie can get a job, but she just can't seem to stay employed at one place for very
long.
In 1959, Barbie started out as a teenage fashion model, and by 2008 she had held more than
75 additional positions.
That's not to say she's taken that many positions all within the same field, no.
She is something of a Jane of all trades.
“I drew this when I was 5 years old. I wanted to be a dancer, a doctor, astronaut and a princess when I grew up.”
Over the years Barbie has been employed as an astronaut, a pop star, a super spy, a presidential
candidate, and even a Major League Baseball player.
When Barbie fills out the employment history section of a job application, we're guessing
she needs a few extra sheets of paper.
Can you recall the first time you saw the Barbie Dream House?
Chances are you looked right past the steep numbers on the price tag and decided the house
was an absolute necessity.
The first Barbie Dream House from 1960, as depicted in an original commercial by Mattel,
was quite different.
It featured a large closet to store all of Barbie's clothes as well as a "fashion shop."
An article for Huffington Post dubbed it the "six-room mega-dollhouse" and, at four feet
long and three feet tall, it isn't hard to understand why.
It was also retailing for a whopping $110 in 1960 which, as the article explains, would've
roughly equated to $350 in 2012.
However, the Dream House was not quite what it seemed.
An online real estate brokerage said a real-life Barbie Dream House in Malibu would cost around
$107 thousand dollars.
The reason it's so affordable?
Its size.
Blown up according to scale, Barbie's home would be what the article called a, quote,
"laughably small 126-square-foot footprint."
Perhaps Barbie was just ahead of her time all these years.
Maybe her dream mansion was more of a Dream Tiny Home all along.
Where there is Barbie, there is also Ken.
Ken was introduced just two years after Barbie hit the shelves.
Why the name Ken?
Just as Barbie was named after Ruth Handler's daughter, Ken was named after her son of the
same name.
So, does that mean Barbie and Ken are brother and sister?
Considering what we know about their relationship, that seems a little strange.
"Well I guess you don’t know everything about women.”
Of course, just because Barbie and Ken's namesakes were siblings doesn't mean the dolls were
brother and sister too.
That probably isn't a big surprise.
But what might be?
In addition to not being brother and sister, Ken and Barbie also weren't ever married.
According to an interview for Today with Russell Arons, vice president of marketing at Mattel,
Barbie and Ken dated for 43 years.
But they never tied the knot.
In 2004 came their shocking decision to split.
What caused the two to part ways after so many seemingly wonderful years together?
Arons made some hints during his interview that the separation could be because of Ken's
reluctance to marry Barbie.
Which is fair.
If after 43 years you can't propose, maybe it's time to get back on those dating apps.
In Ken's defense, the fact that he never knew whether he would be dating an astronaut, a
pizza chef, or an international spy from week-to-week may have helped fuel his fear of commitment.
Don't worry, though, because Barbie and Ken ultimately patched things up in 2014.
Regardless of how small Barbie's Dream House might be, Barbie's pad is certainly crowded
enough with just Ken and herself.
Yet, that doesn't seem to matter much to Barbie.
She's still filled her home and her life with quite a few pets.
According to Entrepreneur, at this point Barbie she has 17 dogs and five cats.
Bad news, Barbie.
That isn't even legal!
In Barbie's hometown of Malibu, California, four dogs is the limit.
Barbie's five cats, however, may be allowed to stay.
Barbie doesn't just stop at collecting house pets, however.
She also has three ponies and 12 horses.
It's surprising Barbie hasn't ended up on an episode of Hoarders by now.
She's simply out of control!
Barbie has always been pretty money-driven.
She upgrades her house every few years and all of her homes are in Malibu.
She likes what she likes, apparently.
Barbie's home upgrades have been pretty spectacular.
The 2014 Dream House featured two elevators!
Why two?
Well, she needed one just to transport her clothes.
Obviously.
Even more mind-blowing was Barbie's upgrade in 2017 named Barbie Hello Dreamhouse.
It's a smart home that can respond to over 100 voice commands.
And it has an electronic staircase that turns into a slide.
“Hello, Dreamhouse, turn the staircase into a slide."
In addition to having the snazziest houses, Barbie also owns more vehicles than she probably
knows what to do with.
Her first car was a 1962 two-seater sports car.
Since then she's had a Mercedes Benz, Chevrolet Corvette, among others.
Apparently, her temporary breakup with Ken led to a shopping spree, during which she
acquired even more vehicles.
Will anything she buys ever be enough?
Barbie is beautiful, but have you ever wondered what she would look like without all that
makeup?
No doubt she's "naturally" attractive.
Nickolay Lamm is an artist and researcher from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who makes dolls
without make-up and with imperfections like acne and even stretch marks.
Lamm spoke to Today about Barbie's makeup, saying,
"I think it's a little bit too hyper-sexualized and I think people don't say anything because
makeup has been on dolls for so long."
Lamm, along with another artist, photographed four dolls and digitally removed their makeup.
The result?
Barbie is still gorgeous.
Lamm told Today,
"[The Barbie] dolls look better, more natural without makeup and I feel that without the
makeup, they still look good.
[...] Why don't they sell them without makeup as well?"
Barbie, for better or for worse, has been a big part of many girls' childhood memories.
The popular dolls are often viewed as safe playthings by parents and favorited by young
children across the globe.
However, are Barbies truly as harmless as they initially appear?
According to a study on the effect of dolls on the body image of 5- to 8-year-old girls,
the answer is no.
Or, at least, possibly not.
In the study, 162 girls within the age range of 5-8 were shown different pictures and then
were asked to complete assessments of body image.
The findings indicate that girls exposed to pictures of the Barbie doll had, quote, "lower
body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape" than girls who were either shown
pictures of other dolls, or pictures featuring no dolls at all.
The study continued,
"Even if dolls cease to function as aspirational role models for older girls, early exposure
to dolls epitomizing an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image."
Of course, that's not the whole story about Barbie's impact on kids and the culture at
large.
As Mattel president and COO Richard Dickson argued, Barbie may, quote, "represent female
empowerment."
But it could be argued that, until recently, instead of representing the everywoman, Barbie
was a representation of affluent white women.
The first true African American Barbie doll didn't hit shelves until 1968.
Prior to that, Mattel did make an attempt at releasing the first ethnically diverse
doll in 1967: a doll called "Colored Francie."
However, this Francie was not generally accepted as an accurate African-American representation
because she used the exact same mold as a white Francie doll, but was instead just colored
brown.
Christie, however, came along in 1968 and utilized a new mold that more accurately represented
African features, giving her a unique place in history.
Mattel seems to have realized the errors of their ways and is becoming more and more representative
of diversity.
As of 2016, Mattel started selling Barbies with three additional body types — curvy,
tall, and petite — and seven more skin tones.
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