Dear Mattel,
Really? It took 57 years to make changes to Barbie? That is far too long. No matter what, women continue to hold ourselves to an impossible standard, where Malibu Barbie and her spun-gold hair, unhealthy, cancer-inducing tanning habits, and Bo Derek aviator frames are an American aspiration.
By virtue of my DNA, I will never look like Barbie. No chance. As we know, even Barbie cannot technically be Barbie in real life, as her body proportions are not anatomically possible. Her enormous breasts would topple and impale their plastic mounds, Samurai style, on her nail file of a surfboard. Hell, Bo Derek, herself, made headlines for aging beautifully, naturally, gracefully.
I have a daughter. She is three. She is delightful. She is kind. She is brave. She is happy. She is free to express her imagination within the confines of the little tribe we work diligently to create for her with integrity, safety, and unconditional love.
Yes, true, we are her parents, so we think she is unequivocal, but, by nature of being parents, I am doubtful we are the only people who espouse such views for our beloved daughter.
In her iconicism, Barbie is not brave or kind or happy. Not that anyone knows this for sure, but, when I clip past Barbies in the toy aisles with my daughter, this is what I see: Barbie is a doll of blankness who does nothing more than wear doll clothes well.
She is Caucasian. She has a huge head. Her eyes are plates, penultimate pseudo-promises to anime fan-boys, who, frankly, most parents do not wish our daughters to partner with for life, as these men also tend to play to a stereotype: lacking social skills, overvaluing unrealistic female standards of beauty, and prone to falling into traps of pornographic images that may twist their views of healthy sex.
Barbie's makeup is tattooed, and her waist is non-existent. Her feet fit a woman's size 3-4 shoe, and she wears heels as a regular practice. Her breasts are the first things you see, being things, because there is no other way to describe their massive, perky girth. Not only is Barbie top-heavy. If she were an actual human woman, she would only be able to crawl on the floor and could not stand upright.
If that's where you want Barbie, animalistic, crawling, fodder of grown up wet dreams, she won't be popping over to my daughter's playroom in her Corvette or cute little Jeep.
I use critical and caustic language because this is a serious issue. Having a doll like Barbie sport around our culture in her sexy-baby costumes means that Barbie also sports around our pervading consciousness, individual and shared.
I am a bit over five feet tall, and my genetic blueprint is loaded with data that does not spell Barbie for my daughter's expected maturational height.
Thank you for offering Barbie blue hair and seven skin tones and twenty-two eye colors. Way to go! It took 57 years to collectively categorize women as "Petite," "Tall," "Curvy?" This may be the way women find jeans that fit, but Barbie is an item of commercial merchandise. She is what supermodels are to women like me. She is an anomaly.
Supermodels are genetically obscure and book their jobs based almost solely on their physical attributes. They book the jobs for no other reason than they won the genetic Power Ball. The rest of us just keep buying tickets and whispering voodoo over winning number combinations in hopes to build Barbie Dream Houses, three levels, elevator, throw-back 70s decor, all of it.
Women are not measurements. Dress size doesn't matter, even if the attempts are nobly uniformed in the "girl job" du jour: astronaut, veterinarian, pediatrician (of course).
When I thought you were setting us forward, you set us back. Giving Barbie three shapes is turning her into menu options. For the main course, my daughter's generation may now choose between beef, chicken, and fish. That's what this so-called revolution has done.
If only there were seven skin tones and three body shapes. if only we could narrow eye colors down to less than thirty variations.
Only recently, "Hello Barbie" was introduced to us with the impression that girls could confide in Barbie, but the software was shady, since people caught on pretty quickly that Barbie was doing more than opening her non-opening ears to little girls spelling out their parents' marital troubles, well-preserved familial skeletons, and other potentially backfiring problems.
If Barbie wasn't listening, who was?
Barbie resisted change for so long, the most recent news was surprising to me, given all the plotting to keep Barbie telling us math is hard. Barbie's reconstruction is so behind the times. Like all things Barbie, this announcement is likely to join the roster of past Barbie parodies.
After 57 years, Barbie is presented in an alternative that barely hints at defying her glaring image burning on my retinas since toddlerhood. Why not give us our ultimate wish? We want Ken to come out of the closet. Hint: everyone knows, and everyone's okay with it, too.
If I outlive any progress on that swarthy beast-boy Ken, of course, it will be perfectly fine with me.
Yours,
Dumpy Barbie
(Pale skin, brown hair, glasses, sagging gut, potty mouth, and C-section scar are all available for additional, separate retail purchase.)