Barbie comes in many shapes and sizes — so she was always bound to stoke a
little controversy here and there. But who knew it could ever get this bad?
If you always thought the whole idea of Barbie felt a little off, there might be a good reason
for that. The doll upon which Barbie was based first appeared in Germany in 1952 — and it was
not supposed to be a kids' toy. Barbie was based on a doll called "Bild Lilli," which
was the plastic version of a call girl who appeared in a series of adult comic strips.
Lilli was sold in adult-themed toy stores, right next to a whole bunch of stuff that's probably
best left to the imagination. She was also sold in tobacco shops and bars, which, let's be honest,
probably aren't the kind of places Lilli's successor would spend much of her time.
As you've no doubt guessed already, the Lilli doll was not meant for kids but for adult men,
who would get them as bachelor party gifts and then do god-knows-what with them. But it wasn't
just men who dug these things. They were popular with kids, too, and when Mattel co-founder Ruth
Handler discovered Bild Lilli while on vacation in Switzerland, she saw its potential as a kids' toy.
Handler brought a few of them home to use as the Barbie doll's prototype, and the rest is history.
The very first Barbie doll was introduced at the American International Toy Fair in
1959. And because Mattel had evidently misappraised the innocence of America's
adult population in the late '50s, they gave her the tagline: "A shapely teenage fashion
model" — which seems bad today, but must have been positively shocking back then.
At first, it seemed like the only person who really liked Barbie was her creator,
Ruth Handler. Designers at Mattel openly expressed doubts that parents would want to buy such a toy,
and even Mattel's sales department was skeptical. As it turned out,
they were right — wholesalers didn't like Barbie, either. Most importantly, though,
mothers didn't like Barbie, and they were the ones in charge of the cash.
"Oh, won't somebody please think of the children?!"
Handler knew this was going to be a problem, so she hired a marketing professional to help
her figure out how to sell the doll. He interviewed 191 girls who loved
Barbie and 45 mothers who hated her, and the conclusion he came to was — wait for
it — that Barbie should have bigger breasts. He also decided that mothers should be told
that Barbie would help their daughters learn how to accessorize. Because let's face it, there's
really no loftier goal than raising a child who knows how to match her heels to her scarf.
In 1964, Mattel decided to give Barbie a kid sister named Skipper. Then, in 1974,
they decided that Skipper couldn't remain a child forever — so the
company allowed to finally join Barbie as an unrealistically proportioned teenager.
For some reason, though, Mattel didn't just release a teenage version of Skipper. Instead,
they decided to replicate the horrors of puberty in plastic. This version of Skipper begins as a
child, but then, if you rotated her arm, grew taller and got bigger breasts. Fortunately,
Mattel opted not to Growing Up Skipper acne and hormonal anger.
Parents mostly hated this doll, obviously, and Mattel wisely decided to stop selling it in 1977.
Still, they clearly didn't learn their lesson: As recently as 2007, parents who really wanted their
kids to experience the joys of puberty writ small could purchase the same basic doll, who had been
renamed Growing Up Glam. This particular version featured a miniskirt, crop top, half-lidded eyes,
and duck lips, which all amounted to a doll that looks exactly as disturbing as it sounds.
It's easy to imagine that Mattel's worst years were the 1960s and
'70s — and there's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that. The thing is,
though, they didn't really get much better with time.
In 1963, Mattel had responded to accusations that Barbie was too
sexy by releasing her much less-sexy "friend," Midge.
"It's Midge! Mattel's marvelous new teenage doll."
Midge was more child-like than her counterpart, which makes it doubly bizarre that, in 2002,
Mattel decided to release a pregnant version of the doll.
This horror show of a doll featured a magnetic belly that you could pop off
in a horrific facsimile of the world's most hapdash C-section.
Inside, there was an articulated fetus poised for childbirth. Critics accused Mattel of promoting
teen pregnancy and teen sex, so Mattel tried to fix their misstep by adding a wedding ring
to later versions — which, when you think about it, makes it all seem so much worse. Eventually,
these dolls were pulled off the shelves, and Mattel re-released Midge without her baby bump…
although they still made sure to include a reference to her husband and young son.
By the 1990s, Mattel had yet to figure out that parents didn't especially love to buy
toys that idealized women as empty-headed, anorexic sex objects. Take Teen Talk Barbie,
for example. Released in 1992, this doll was a verbal Barbie who
mostly sat around talking about things like weddings, clothes, and shopping.
"Meet me at the mall!"
"What's she gonna say next?"
"Listen!"
"Do you have a crush on anyone?"
The one phrase that really stoked controversy, however, was Teen Talk Barbie's declaration that
"math class is tough." Critics complained that the phrase perpetuated the stereotype that girls
can't be good at math. This story has a happy ending, though, mostly thanks to a group called
the Barbie Liberation Organization. They bought a bunch of Teen Talk Barbies and switched out
their voice boxes for those taken from GI Joes, before placing them back on the shelves just in
time for Christmas. The end result? A whole lot of kids opened their presents to find either a GI
Joe who whined about math being hard — or a Barbie who'd ruthlessly declare that vengeance was hers.
In the end, Mattel acknowledged their mistake,
omitting the most provocative phrase from the computer chip in future Teen
Talk Barbies. Notably, though, they never recalled the original doll.
Of course, it wasn't enough for Barbie to merely stereotype American teenage girls.
In the early '80s, they decided to stereotype everyone else, too. That's when Mattel launched
the first run of the Dolls of the World series, which features Barbies representing
different world cultures. While this might seem like a great step towards inclusivity,
the early versions of these dolls weren't without their problems. One of the first in the series,
"Oriental Barbie," wasn't given a specific country like the others,
and her name utilized a term that is widely considered to be derogatory.
Fast forward to 2012, when Mattel decided to reintroduce Mexican Barbie,
replete with a dress that looks like something they'd force waitresses to
wear at a Mexican restaurant in Cincinnati. This is bad enough, but don't forget how the
doll also came with a passport – a joke in poor taste that came at a politically volatile time.
"Hola!"
"Barbie of Mexico is stunning in her ceremonial dress,
with long black hair and traditional style. And her adorable chihuahua!"
Pretty much every doll in this series included some kind of ridiculous stereotype,
from Russian Barbie, with her giant furry hat and hand warmer,
to French Barbie, who wore a beret and carried a baguette.
Maybe we should give Mattel some credit for at least being an equal opportunity stereotyper.
Most of Mattel's Barbie doll releases stopped at least just short of being outright trashy. And
it's worth noting that other dolls often veered off in a trashy direction, so it's not like Barbie
is the only toy worthy of criticism. But none of this changes the fact that Mattel released
a number of genuinely inappropriate Barbies; take the Black Canary Barbie, for example,
who was modeled after a DC superhero that very few Barbie fans had likely ever heard of.
In the DC comics, Black Canary is known for wearing a crime-fighting outfit that
is anything but practical, including high-heeled boots and fishnet stockings. Mattel's Black Canary
Barbie was, in fairness, entirely faithful to the DC character, but that didn't excuse
it in the eyes of critics. Considering that this doll sold for $40, you could argue that
Mattel wasn't even planning to market the doll to children — although that didn't stop Black Canary
Barbie from earning the moniker "S&M Barbie." Maybe Mattel should have stuck to Batgirl.
What's creepier than a plastic doll that grows breasts? How about a plastic doll
that talks back? We know what you're thinking: dolls have been speaking for decades. But this
isn't the same thing — not by a long shot. Hello Barbie is a doll that kids can talk to,
one that actually listens. And therein lies the creepiness: Kids can tell this Barbie
their troubles, and Barbie will answer with one of 8,000 programmed responses.
So how exactly does Barbie know what to say? Well, she makes a recording of the
child's voice and uploads it to the servers at a company called ToyTalk. The company's
servers then translate it into text and look for responses that match whatever
keywords it found. Worst still, these computer servers also save all the data they collect,
so Barbie will come to know her owner in a way that nobody else can. Oh,
and it's probably worth mentioning that Mattel and ToyTalk are allowed to use that date in pretty
much any way they like. As a spokesperson from Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood said:
"They really shouldn't call it Hello Barbie. They should call it Surveillance Barbie."
With her hip jean capris and hot pink heeled boots, 2010's Video Girl Barbie seemed just like
any other innocent millennial girl. But Mattel, appealing to young girls interested in filmmaking,
equipped her with a dangerous weapon. Embedded in her cute little necklace was a tiny lens
that relayed video to a LCD screen embedded in her back. To power her espionage set-up,
this cyborg Barbie hid a triple A battery in each leg. She could
record up to 25 minutes of footage, which could then be downloaded to a computer for
editing via a small cable connected above her derriere. Ah, the magic of technology.
"Woah."
While this might seem tame by modern standards,
Video Girl Barbie launched at a time when influencers, smartphones, and YouTube were
still in their infancy. A tiny spy cam was still pretty scary to a lot of people — and
Mattel's creepy marketing statements didn't help. In one instance, the doll's blurb read:
"Unsuspecting subjects won't know that Barbie is watching their every move."
Ultimately, the FBI stirred up a great deal of controversy when they issued a
"Cyber Crime Alert," warning law enforcement agencies that these dolls could be used for
the production of child pornography and should therefore be considered evidence if found at
crime scenes. Though allegedly nothing actually happened to precipitate this horrifying warner,
the agency's edict inevitably leaked to the masses, leading to boycotts and public outrage.
In 2010, Mattel released a tech-savvy Barbie who worked with computers, which
made a lot of sense considering the era's rapid expansion of various kinds of technology. But,
once again, the company got in trouble over the doll's tasteless and potentially harmful
accessories. In addition to a binary-code emblazoned shirt, heart-shaped flash drive,
hip spectacles, Bluetooth headset, and, of course, a pink laptop, this Barbie's
release came alongside a problematic picture book titled "Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer."
In the book, a bumbling Barbie accidentally installs a virus onto her sister's computer.
She quickly professes to only be a designer who always relies on the help of her two
male classmates for help with coding, and is generally portrayed as incompetent in
her field despite her impressive title. The book's stereotype-ridden plot was
so atrocious and blatantly sexist that it went immediately viral upon its rediscovery in 2014.
"I love Barbie, I grew up with Barbie, but I think we can do better."
People tore the story apart through Twitter jokes and scathing blogs, which argued that
it sent a terrible message to young girls. Many also posted rewrites of the book online,
in which this Barbie's work as a computer programmer is more befitting of her job
title. In response to the intense backlash, Mattel issued a sheepish apology and pulled
the accompanying book from Amazon. Though Barbie still works in tech, it's assumed that she has
finally gotten that well-deserved promotion. Oh, and those two male colleagues now work for her.
Technically, the idea of a plus-sized Barbie was controversial before she even arrived on shelves.
A rendered image of a voluptuous triple-chinned version of Barbie that circulated on social
media in 2013 became something of a scandal online, with many people claiming that such a
doll would advocate for unhealthy lifestyle habits rather than promote the acceptance of bigger body
types. The backlash was so great, in fact, that no truly plus-sized Barbie ever saw the light of day.
Instead, Mattel opted for its 2016 Fashionistas series, which celebrated at least a few other body
types besides just "disturbingly thin." Barbie now came in three options: "petite," "tall," and
"curvy." The curvy dolls, which are basically as plus-sized as Barbie has ever gotten, are still
pretty thin by most peoples' standards, a fact that led to yet more controversy for Mattel.
Still, they do feature slightly fuller hips, thighs, calves, stomachs, and arms,
creating the impression of a somewhat more anatomically accurate adult woman's
body. Unsettlingly, however, a 2019 study published in Body Image found
that many young girls still refer to these dolls as fat, suggesting a much
deeper and more widespread problem with unrealistic portrayals of female bodies.
In 2017, Mattel created a Barbie to commemorate American Olympic fencer
Ibtihaj Muhammad as part of their Shero line of dolls. Fashioned in Muhammad's likeness,
the doll came complete with a saber, protective mask, and hijab.
"This is all pretty major to me, not because I'm looking at a Barbie made in my likeness,
but because of what Barbie means to me personally."
While you'd think that releasing a Barbie wearing traditional Muslim
garb would be considered inclusive and progressive,
many took umbrage with the release — and for a number of different reasons.
Some, like Self writer Sarah Hagi, claimed that it was problematic that
such a Barbie wasn't released until a Muslim woman did something exceptional,
like win an Olympic medal. Hagi argued that this perpetuated the notion that Western
cultures expect Muslims to continuously prove their worth to be seen as equals.
Others felt that the Muhammad Barbie was a hollow and purely economically motivated gesture. As
Islam and gender scholar Shenila Khoja-Moolji wrote in Al Jazeera, it could be seen as a
way for Mattel to commodify Islam by treating the religion as yet another target market to exploit,
profiting off Muslims in a form of "racial capitalism." She added that Mattel's Barbie
did little to fight back against American Islamophobia, which was especially rampant
at the time of its release. Meanwhile, some feminists were also upset about the doll's hijab,
which they argued is a symbol of misogyny that is not supported by all Muslim women.
Not every woman needs to be Barbified, and no doll proves that better than Mattel's Frida
Kahlo Barbie. Mattel claimed that it landed the rights to create a Barbie of the late Mexican
artist from her niece, Isolda, a decade before the doll's launch in 2018. But some of Frida's more
distant family members, including her great-niece Mara Romeo, claimed that the toy company did not
have permission to use Frida's likeness and sued Mattel, hoping to inspire a redesign of the doll.
Romeo told AFP News that she was displeased with how Frida was portrayed in doll form,
citing her light eyes and complexion, lack of joined eyebrows, thin frame, and inaccurate
style of dress. In general, many also felt that making Frida into an American doll famous for her
unrealistic body and penchant for consumerism was particularly inappropriate in this case,
considering Kahlo was a lifelong communist who regularly bucked traditional gender roles.
Actress Salma Hayek, who portrayed the legendary artist in the 2002 film Frida,
also spoke out about Barbie Frida, expressing disappointment over how
Mattel had erased the artist's most defining features while presenting the
doll as an inspiration for young girls. On Instagram, she wrote:
"#FridaKahlo never tried to be or look like anyone else.
She celebrated her uniqueness. How could they turn her into a Barbie."
An injunction was eventually granted,
and Mattel stopped producing these Frida dolls — in Mexico, at least.
Mattel has been making an effort to be more inclusive in recent years. Of course,
they've got quite a task ahead of them if they want to stop people seeing Barbie as the blonde,
thin girl that she has been for so many decades. Still, the company is trying. Mattel has been
slowly reinventing the Barbie institution through its Fashionistas line, which strives to provide
children with a more realistic range of body types, skin tones, and impairments.
The collection includes dolls with hearing aids, prosthetic legs, and the skin condition vitiligo.
"Just be yourself — a crew just for you!"
Then, in 2023, Mattel added its first Barbie with Down syndrome to the line.
The company partnered with the National Down Syndrome Society to create the doll,
which features the elongated torso, short stature, and slightly slanted eyes associated
with Down syndrome. She also wears a necklace with three chevrons — a representation of the
three chromosomes that cause the condition. Meanwhile, the doll features foot orthotics
and a dress adorned with butterflies, which is a common symbol of Down syndrome awareness.
While plenty of people were pleased with the doll, several voiced concerns that
it did not accurately portray a person with Down syndrome. One Twitter user even tweeted:
"This is making fun of people with Down syndrome."
As a result, many have called for a more true-to-life redesign based on real models.