(First published in the Los Angeles Alternative, 8/11/06)
Did you know that three Barbie Dolls are sold every second? Talk about human trafficking. Three Barbies. Every second. Three seconds: nine Barbies. Ninety Barbies in 30 seconds. That blonde is one hot commodity. Everybody wants her body—with a different dress on, a different hairstyle, in a different box. Barbie is one of America’s greatest 20th Century cultural collectibles. Not bad for a bimbo.
Recently, I had the pleasure of attending Lights, Camera, Barbie: A National Barbie Doll Collectors Convention, and, inevitably, being in a room full of Barbie dolls does make one think. Mainly about pink. Because that is the big color on display. Many, many pink boxes with shiny plastic lining standing in pyramids extending upward from folding tables and rising to an apex of pink. Like a cubic vagina. Quite a sight.
Then there are the collectors. Many older women with sweatshirts or tank tops on, a lot of guys who like Guys and Dolls, a few closeted husbands following their sweatshirted wives wearing a fanny pack and a fold in their stomach, three freaks, a couple of children, one pair of fake boobs and many, many older women with tank tops on. Which shouldn’t be a surprise. Mattel vows that 90 percent of avid Barbie collectors are women over 40. Women who play with her are usually a little younger. A curious distinction, and one to consider while wandering around a Barbie world. Who are these women, why are they here, and what do they say about Barbie’s evolving place in our culture?
But, before we can attempt to answer that, we’ve got to turn to the Barbies. There was Fashion Model Barbie. Harley Davidson Barbie. Mod Barbie. Movie star Barbie. UNICEF Barbie. Brandy Barbie. Oreo Fun Barbie. Struggling Writer Barbie. A Barbie for every branch of the military. A Barbie for all seasons. Barbies that talked. Barbies that bent. Barbies that wore glasses. Barbies in business suits. Barbies in bathing suits. Barbies in bee-catching suits. (That’s an ultra-rare one.) Barbies with black skin. Barbies with brown skin. Barbies with bad skin? Never. Barbies with curly hair. Barbies with straight hair. Barbies with pit hair (Feminist Barbie). There were Barbies with blue eyes. Barbies with green eyes. And Barbies with one eye. Cyclops Barbie. There was a Barbie for every party. A Barbie for every affair. A Barbie for every position.
I heard one woman trying to trade a bendable Barbie in its original box for a black Barbie dressed like Diana Ross. But the woman holding the soul diva drove a hard bargain, and the two couldn’t reach a compromise.
I walked away to watch a line of 30 women or more move slowly toward two Barbie designers, Robert Best and Sharon Luckerman—the first a well-kept man with exquisite teeth, the second an attractive woman neither in nor past her prime—who were signing some souvenirs. They both gave their little sewing and stitching hands a workout, wrapping them around a Sharpie, signing book, box or doll.
Across the room, I witnessed an emotionally charged Barbie raffle. One older woman in a wheelchair won a Barbie in a wedding dress and almost broke down in tears.
It was a Barbie barrage. And what was fascinating to me was, while all the bitter Barbie-haters want to vilify Barbie as a bad role model for little girls, there were no little girls here. There were only big girls. Grown up girls. Girls that had been raised with Barbie and lived to tell the tale. They still love her and love the life she’s led through their same generation. They love that she’s gotten to go so many places—to Africa, to all four oceans, to the moon. They love that she’s gotten to do so many things—attend a movie premiere, walk a runway, ride a motorcycle. They love that she’s gotten to meet so many people. Think about her circulation. Maybe, considering all this love, Barbie isn’t such a bad role model after all?
Barbie, now 47, has firmly established a dual position in our culture. On the one hand, for little girls, she is a doll. A fantasy figure to dress up and move around the carpet. A sex toy. Something to stimulate their imagination. That’s why they weren’t at the convention: they were home pushing her in a pink convertible. While, on the other hand, to the women who collect her, Barbie is not a plaything or something to fantasize about, but rather a nostalgic reminder of where she’s been. It is these women that breathe the collective life into Barbie. Some girls grow out of Barbie, some grow with her.
Barbie remains a booming, billion-dollar industry—three were just sold—because of the little girls that buy the new ones like that, that, and that. But a huge majority of folks—the ones here, at the convention especially—care about the Barbies that have been on the ride and survived. Original hair intact.
