Want to play Barbies?
For 50 years, that question has served as social shorthand for entry into a world of pink perfection. Zooming in her Star 'Vette from Malibu pool party to three-tiered Dreamhouse, America's sassy plastic friend, along with sometimes beau Ken and ever-expanding galaxy of family, pals and pets, has mirrored society at its most fun and fashionable through the decades.
"She seemed special, not like the other dolls," said Barbara Weiner, a corporate communications consultant in Decatur who has held onto her Barbies since childhood. "She represented dreams and this little world I guess I escaped to when I was a kid."
Created by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler and officially introduced as Barbie Millicent Roberts on March 9, 1959, Barbie began life as a teen model and has blazed a multi-faceted career ever since. She's been a chef and an Olympic athlete, a NASCAR driver and a dentist, an astronaut, teacher, rock star, news reporter and surgeon. She's served in the military, played a number of pro sports, has been crowned Miss America and even won "American Idol."
She's also been a presidential candidate several times, but as Mattel wryly notes in its plucky pink press kit, there's never actually been a "Caribou Barbie," a pejorative that popped up during last year's presidential campaign. And a slew of celebs from Lucille Ball to Lindsay Lohan have been Barbie-fied, if that's a word.
At 11.5 inches tall, Barbie looms large in the memories of many metro Atlantans.
"I grew up in Westchester County, N.Y., and moved to Atlanta when I was 9," said Debby Stone, a corporate skills coach in Alpharetta. "Once I got here and I started to make friends, I played Barbies with the girls that I met. 'Do you want to play Barbies?' was sort of an icebreaker."
Her collection includes Barbie, of course, and sister Skipper, friends Midge, Brad and Julia and the stalwart Ken, whom Barbie officially threw over in 2004. Stone has also hung on to a mountain of clothing and accessories, as well as a camper and van.
"It was imaginative play, it really encouraged creativity" she said. "My son is 16 now. Even when he was little, all the toys did things and made noise."
Of course, not everyone loves Barbie. She's been banned by Saudi Arabia's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, and critics here have complained that her too-perfect proportions advance an unattainable body image. The Wellness Resource Center at Vanderbilt University says a life-size Barbie would wear a child's size-3 shoe, would have to crawl to support her top-heavy frame and that her slender neck would not allow room for both a trachea and esophagus. ("She could either eat OR breathe," the center's Web site says.)
West Virginia lawmaker Jeff Eldridge has actually proposed making Barbie illegal. The Democratic state delegate wants to prohibit the sale of Barbies in his state, saying they encourage young girls to focus on looks instead of intellect.
Ansley Park's Sal Kibler, director of communications at the Atlanta Women's Foundation, has heard it all before.
"My relationship with Barbie did not make me feel the need to hate my body," said Kibler, who got her first Barbie as a fourth-grader in about 1963. "I did lust after her wardrobe, car and boyfriend Ken."
When her daughter, now a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Georgia, was little, Kibler once rented a Barbie video and got chastised by the clerk.
"She snorted and rolled her eyes at me and said something like, 'There's a great example for your daughter'," recalled Kibler, who laughed off the little outburst.
Atlanta native Elizabeth Wright's brother had no such issues - his GI Joes and her Barbies were buds.
Today, her collection numbers around 75, and many have never been removed from the box.
"I really love that Barbie can do anything," said Wright. "Our mothers grew up thinking they could be a stewardess. Barbie came along and said, 'You can be the pilot'."
MORE BARBIE FACTS
• The first Barbies cost $3 in 1959, and 300,000 were sold that year. More recently, a mint-condition original fetched nearly $28,000 at auction.
• The first African-American and Hispanic Barbies were introduced in 1980. Barbie has represented 50 nationalities over the years.
• Barbie looked straight ahead for the first time in 1971. Before that she always struck a coquettish sideways glace.
• She's owned 50 different pets, and more than 70 designers have created her clothes. She and her friends have run through 105 million+ yards of fabric and a billion pairs of shoes to keep up with styles of the day.
• Barbie's had more than 100 different careers. Her first run at the presidency was in 1992.
Source: Mattel
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