Loved and loathed, Barbie's history isn't all bright pink - Action News
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Loved and loathed, Barbie's history isn't all bright pink

Despite a complicated past, Barbie has maintained cultural relevance since her inception in 1959. Over the last decade, revenue from the doll and other branded products has hovered around $1 billion US.

Despite a complicated past, Barbie has maintained cultural relevance since her inception in 1959

The first Barbie Doll from 1959, featuring a blonde ponytail and a portfolio of fashion sketches, was seen by some as progressive and independent, while others were critical of the doll's slim frame.
The first Barbie Doll from 1959, featuring a blond ponytail and a portfolio of fashion sketches, was seen by some as progressive and independent, while others were critical of the doll's slim frame. (Getty Images)

In her 64 years of existence, Barbie has had hundreds of careers, including as an astronautand running to be U.S. president. But her story isn't all bright pink.

The doll has also been the focal point for countless debates around feminism and body image. Despite these controversies, some experts sayBarbie is as culturally relevant today as she was at her inception.

Risqu beginnings

Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler invented the doll in 1959.

During a family vacation in Europe, Handler reportedly saw a German Lilli doll a popular post-war comic strip character that appeared in the German tabloid Bild, and used it as the inspiration for Barbie.

Bild Lilli was extremely popular, especially among men, saidMaria Teresa Hart, the author of Doll, a non-fiction pop-culture feminist critique of dolls, doll historyand doll culture.

"She was using her body and was using everything that she could at her disposal," Hart said."She was funny and flirtatious and, yes, she was written with the male gaze in mind."

The American doll debuted on March 9, 1959, at the New York International Toy Fair, as Barbie, Teenage Fashion Model,sporting a blondponytail and a portfolio of fashion sketches.

Barbie Dolls on display to promote the Barbie Fashion Show to be held at the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in New York February 13, 2009.
Barbie has seen many iterations since her introduction to the market in 1959. But the doll with its ultra-thin physique has also been criticized for upholding an unrealistic beauty standard. (AFP via Getty Images)

Janice Rudkowski, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, worked with Mattel Canada as a senior marketing manager. She and Hart were both quick to point out that while Barbie may have been crafted with the male gaze in mind, she was still very progressive for the time.

"This doll that was designed was a single, independent woman. This is 1959, and if you look at the very first house, Barbie Dream House it kind of looks like a bachelor pad. She clearly has gone to college because there's these college banners on the walls. That is not a stereotypical 1950s or 1960s woman," Rudkowski said.

A staple of the zeitgeist

In the decades since, Barbie and her possessions have always "reflected and shaped the marketplace," according to M.G. Lord, the author of Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll and co-host of the podcast L.A. Made: The Barbie Tapes.

But Mattel's attempts to keep up with cultural trends weren't always perfect and Barbie often had detractors.

In 1972, the National Organization for Women protested Barbie at the annual New York toy fair, criticizing fashion dolls like Barbie for perpetuating "sexual stereotypes by encouraging little girls to see themselves solely as mannequins, sex objects or housekeepers."

M.G. Lord and L.A. Made: The Barbie Tapes podcast co-host, Antonia Cereijido, visit the World of Barbie in Santa Monica on June 25, 2023.
M.G. Lord, left, is shown at the World of Barbie in Santa Monica, Calif., on June 25, 2023, with her L.A. Made: The Barbie Tapes podcast co-host, Antonia Cereijido. (Submitted by M.G. Lord)

During the civil rights movement, Mattel created a Black friend for Barbie named Christiebut a titular Black Barbie didn't come until decades later.

"Barbie was initially a skinny white girl, and they didn't introduce the titular Barbie character as Black Barbie until 1980," said Hart.

The 1980s also led to another iteration of Barbie, as more women continued to enter the workforce.

Donning a pink suit and a briefcase, Day-to-Night Barbie went to work,too. The doll was also given a new promotional slogan: "We girls can do anything."

It's the closest Mattel has come to explicitly identifying Barbie as a feminist a word that was "stigmatized" in corporate America said Lord, who isalso an associate professor at the University of Southern California (USC).

WATCH | Day-to-Night Barbie commercial from 1984:

Barbie's extremely thin body hasfrequently faced criticism, too, for upholding an unrealistic beauty standard.

As intersectionality and body positivity became more mainstream ideas, Mattel made changes to the doll in 2016, adding millimetres of width to her thighs and waist, reducing her breasts and creating more racially diverse dolls.

While Rudkowski understands the criticism of Barbie's body, she said it's one that's all too familiar.

"Criticizing her body is the exact same criticism that human women get all the time," she said. "Not only do human women get criticized for every aspect of their body, but this doll is getting criticized for every aspect of her body."

"Did we ever criticize Spiderman? A human man can't do what Spiderman does.Those criticisms, to me, are very reflective of what's happening in society," Rudkowskisaid.

Research from a 2006 article in the journal Developmental Psychology found that young girls aged five to eight that were exposed to images of Barbie dolls reported lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape than girls exposed to images of a larger doll.

These examples of an evolving, changing Barbie dollare part of an approach that has kept her relevant all these years, saysSameer Hosany, a professor of marketing at the Royal University of London in the U.K.

LISTEN | CBC Radio's Day 6 on why 'Barbiecore' is having a moment:
When the Barbie movie finally opened this week, many fans went full Barbiecore and packed theatres draped head-to-toe in every shade of pink you can imagine. Fashion psychologist Shakaila Forbes-Bell tells us what makes Barbiecore feminist, why pink gives people main-character energy and how to try out the look yourself.

"One of the main, key strategiesthat they've done is this sense of constantly reinventing themselves," he said.

Barbie has stayed popular. Over the last decade, Barbie'stotal brand revenue has hovered around $1 billion US, according to Statista. And 2021 marked the highest net-sales value for the brand since 2013, with revenue hitting $1.7 billion US worldwide.

Main character energy

Of course, where there's Barbie, there's (sometimes)Ken.

Ken first arrived a few years after Barbie's inception, in 1961. But as we've come to learn, it's really all about Barbie.

"Whether she's rocking out, or surfing, or whatever, she will find the Ken that corresponds to her. But also if she doesn't, it's kind of,'Who cares?' because Ken is this add-on," said Hart.

A woman wearing a white T-shirt and a thick black choker necklace is shown holding a Barbie Doll dressed in Spanish clothing in front of a light pink wall.
Maria Teresa Hart, who has family from Chile, poses with her own Chilean Barbie. She says her mother chose the doll for her because it represents her country. (Submitted by Maria Teresa Hart)

Because of her ability to be tailored to audiences and trends, over the years, Barbiehas had some special connections to Canada, too.

As part of the brand's "Dolls of the World" program, which featured dozens of globally inspired designs from all continents,Barbie donned the red serge and Stetson of an RCMP officer.Mattel also released the "Inuk" Inuit Northern Canada Barbie in 1997 under the program.

WATCH | Remembering the RCMP Barbie:

RCMP Barbie doll

11 years ago
Duration 2:26
The doll, part of Mattel's Dolls of the World series, sold out at RCMP Heritage Centre in Regina

And Barbie was a Toronto Raptors fan long before the team won the NBAchampionshipin 2019, whena special 1998 version of the doll featured an authentic purpleuniform.

During her time at Mattel, Rudkowski launched a contest that led to the creation of "Inuit Legend" Barbie.

The doll's original design was created by an Indigenous university fashion student named Christy Marcus, who had Inuit and Cree background.

Janice Rudkowski holds up her own
Janice Rudkowski holds up her own 'Inuit Legend' Barbie. The doll's original design was created by an Indigenous university fashion student named Christy Marcus, who had Inuit and Cree background. (Zoom/Janice Rudkowski)

"She used her own Indigenous heritage as her inspiration for the design there were so many beautiful designs," said Rudkowski.

"That's what's so interesting about the brand is that the possibilities are endless," added Rudkowski.

Where does that leave us?

The bottom line, according to experts, is that Barbie has acomplicated legacy.

"We can actually hold two truths at the same time. We can celebrate the things that we love about her. And then we can also still remember and not have amnesia about some of the kind of problematic things in her past," said Hart.

"So much of how people feel about Barbie depends on who's talking," said Lord. "Barbie is a Rorschach test. People project whatever they want to project onto her little hunk of plastic body."