Barbie Dolls: A Barometer of Diversity
How far is too far?
I remember when my older sister played with her Barbie dolls. She would dress her Barbie up in various clothes and have pretend conversations between Barbie and her boyfriend Ken. In those days Barbie was a white girl with blonde hair, and Ken was the kind of surfer guy I saw in movies with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.
When my sister outgrew her Barbies, they were left in the toy chest with all the other old toys no one played with anymore. In time Barbie lost her hair, her arms, and any semblance of the doll my sister once played with. The clothing became dirty and in time Barbie got tossed.
Spoofing the Barbies
I’ve never had a lot of experience with Barbie dolls since then. I didn’t play with them and neither did my son. To be perfectly honest, I had forgotten there even was such a thing until I started seeing spoofs on Barbie dolls. The first such spoof I saw was a series of Barbie dolls representing different suburbs in the Minneapolis area where I lived.
“Woodbury Barbie” was built on the stereotype of Woodbury being a wealthy suburb where the husbands make six-figure salaries at 3M Company while their wives spend all day shuttling their 2.4 kids from one activity to another in a minivan. Woodbury Barbie came with a…
