Living dolls

Ebony, Jan, 1998 by Laura B. Randolph

Maybe it was because it was so unexpected, or maybe it was because it was so long in coming. Whatever it was, the news that Barbie is getting a complete makeover has women across the country--particularly women who have daughters--raving and rejoicing.

Yes, it was a big deal when Mattel created Pediatrician Barbie and Dentist Barbie and Veterinary Barbie and a host of other professional dolls that provide little girls with positive images. But this body makeover thing? This is major. Large. Huge in the extreme. In fact, if the reaction of my Sister-friends is any indication, since the news that the plastic princess is getting plastic surgery hit the papers, for women everywhere, it's been party time.

It all started several weeks ago when officials at Mattel announced that in 1998 they will release a new, more realistic, Barbie. Her bust will be decreased, her waist will be increased and--are you ready for this?--she'll actually be able to stand on her own two feet because they'll be flat, instead of perpetually frozen in the high-heel position.

If you have a daughter, you know why this Barbie makeover thing is such a big deal that The Wall Street Journal put it on the front page. Little girls love Barbie. And when I say love, I mean love. Not only is Barbie the best-selling toy in the world, the average American girl owns eight, eight, compared with just one in the 1980s.

I don't know why this should surprise me. As little girls, my sister and I spent hours at a time playing with our Barbies. I can still remember the pure, sweet, unadulterated joy I felt the day my mother surprised us with the dream house. At the time, it felt like a dream come true. As much as I loved my Barbie dolls, though, I'm still ticked off at how long it took Mattel (until 1980) to introduce a Black one. I remember cheering out loud when I heard the truly creative way author Lisa Jones dealt with the problem.

"I cut off their hair and dressed them in African-print fabric," Jones says, referring to her two blond Barbies. Apparently, they loved their new look. "They lived together, happily polygamous, with a Black GI Joe bartered from...my downstairs neighbors," Jones writes in her book Bulletproof Diva: Tales of Race, Sex and Hair.

If you are over 30, you know how often Jones' experience was repeated, in one form or another, by Black women across America. Which, to this day, makes me wonder: What in the world was Mattel waiting for?!?! Oh, God, don't let me get started.

The fact is, we know why little girls have always loved Barbie. Because she has everything little girls dream of--a Corvette, a beach house, a handsome boyfriend. But that's not the problem and has never been. The problem, as women have been saying for years, has never been about what Barbie has. It's about what Barbie doesn't have, which is anything remotely close to realistic body measurements.

You may walls to make sure you're sitting down before you read this next part. Okay, now breathe deeply. In, out. For years, people have hypothesized that, if translated into human proportions, Barbie's measurements would be 38-18-34.

Mattel has never confirmed or denied these measurements, but one thing is beyond dispute. Barbie's target market. Little girls. Given that certainty, the thing we must all remember is this: If we aren't very careful, the outsize measurements of a little plastic doll can send all the wrong messages to a little living doll who is at the age when she is forming her notions of beauty. And about how women are valued and how we should value ourselves.

The good news is, on that front at least, little girls seem to be ahead of adults. Way ahead. Officials of the? California toy company say the whole reason they decided to give Barbie all the new body work, not to mention cut back on her makeup, is because that is what little girls wanted. "They wanted Barbie to be cooler," Sean Fitzgerald, vice president of corporate communications for Mattel, was quoted as saying. "They wanted Barbie to be more reflective of themselves."

Don't you just love that?

Of the 24 Barbies Mattel has planned for 1998, only one--"Really Rad Barbie"--will have the new figure. It's a start. For all the women celebrating her arrival, especially all the Sisters who know that raising strong, centered little Black girls isn't kid stuff, you have to like the shape of things to come.