Are Barbie's thighs really getting thicker?
Yes!
But not for the reason you might think. No, Barbie is not putting on the pounds to reflect a more realistic representation of a woman today. She is widening her thighs "slightly" to be able to fit a rechargeable battery in each leg, which with the aid of a concealed microphone will help Barbie to speak.
The new talky Hello Barbie graced the cover of the New York Times magazine section last Sunday, with the caption "Now I Have a Brain!" Actually, to be more specific, her beautiful blonde head was featured. Because this time around, the makers want to focus on Barbie's headspace. In hopes of making the playtime experience more interactive and fulfilling, Barbie now has a voice.
Barbie's perfect body remains, well, perfect.
Funnily enough, just days before this article appeared, the clothing company Lane Bryant launched its campaign, "Plus is Equal" to screaming fans in Times Square. The campaign features a video with big, beautiful women strutting around in black, sexy lingerie. The message is that women of all sizes deserve great fashion, and that "plus-sized women" (a term that Lane Bryant hopes one day to eliminate), deserve to think and feel sexy and confident.
Let's pause for a minute to take a look at the facts.
• Over half of women in the U.S. are a size 14-24. According to Lane Bryant CEO Linda Heasley, the number is 67 percent. And yet, "the media still fails to represent them."
• Barbie is a size 0.
In fact, if Barbie were a real woman, her measurements would be 39" (bust), 18" (waist), 33" (hips). I'm pretty sure she would tip over, or at the very least have to walk on all fours.
I'm trying not to Barbie-bash. Because the truth is that I own a Barbie and I loved my Barbie. So much so that she is stored in my attic in her original black patent leather travel case with a complete wardrobe that includes cocktail dresses, slacks, a see-through negligee and sporty sunglasses. As a girl growing up in the 1960's, Barbie was the "it" doll. And because I was too young to understand the feminist protests of the women's liberation movement that condemned the sexist representation of Barbie, I didn't object to my plastic BFF. She was perfect. And I was determined to grow up to be as perfect as Barbie. Only as a pre-teen in the 1970's, with a body that resembled a scrawny chicken, I realized that my dreams of being Barbie were just that--dreams. I went from saying, "I can't wait to grow up to be like Barbie!" to "There's no way in hell I'm going to grow up to be like Barbie!"
Lane Bryant is working hard to get the fashion industry and women in general to "change the conversation" about a woman's appearance. So is Barbie. When a little girl asks Hello Barbie, ''Do you think I'm pretty?'' Barbie is programmed to respond, ''Of course you're pretty, but you know what else you are? You're smart, talented and funny.''
It's great that Barbie can respond to a person's inside beauty as well as her outer beauty. I wonder what Barbie would say if a little girl asked her, "But Barbie, you're so skinny and perfect, why don't I look like you?" Slumber Party Barbie (circa 1965) came with a pink scale set at 110 lbs and the book "How to Lose Weight" with the simple direction "Don't eat."
I respect that Mattel is striving for Barbie to speak in a politically correct, morally conscious, empathic way. "Jealousy feelings are really hard," Barbie says in response to a little girl who is expressing her emotions in the company's test lab. "Feeling shy is nothing to feel bad about," Barbie responds to another girl who shares that she is shy about making new friends.
So now are we creating a Barbie who represents an ideal that goes beyond having the perfect body? Now will Barbie not only look perfect but also say all of the perfect things?
I must confess that as a little girl, I liked being Barbie's voice. My Barbie would yell at Ken for showing up late for our date and scold Midge to please ask before she borrowed the black and white striped swimsuit. My Barbie would also be there for me and say all of the right things when I worried that the boy next door wouldn't like me as much as I liked him. My Barbie didn't say all of the perfect things ("Don't talk to Midge for a week!" "Yell at your brother to stop bothering you!") but she did say all of the things that helped me feel better in the moment. It was empowering that Barbie had a version of my voice that expressed my opinions and engaged my imagination.
As I made my way through the NYT article, I kept secretly hoping that in an attempt to get Barbie to say all of the right and perfect things, the makers would give her a more imperfect body, or maybe a more realistic one. Alas, they did not. Which might mean that now, not only will little girls have to look pretty and perfect, they'll also have to say everything perfectly.
In today's world, the notion of perfection keeps rising amidst the growing knowledge that we should accept ourselves for who we are. We are bombarded with images of flawless women portrayed in the media, while straining to hear the chants of self-help gurus who encourage us to embrace our flaws and love ourselves unconditionally.
Maybe someone can create the Perfectly Imperfect Barbie? The one who doesn't always look pretty and say all the right things all the time. Who occasionally eats too much pizza, gains weight, gets pimples and says the wrong things (for which she can also be programmed to apologize).
Or maybe little girls will learn to feel empowered enough to tell the perfect Hello Barbie that it's okay if she's not so pretty and perfect all the time. Barbie might be relieved to know that.