If Dolls Walked: Behind that perfect face

By Hannah Brown

The Marketing of Barbie

My media project was looking at the marketing of Barbie dolls at Target. For this project, I went to the Target store located on University Avenue in St. Paul, MN. I looked at the Barbie aisle to get a "bigger picture" of how Target sells Barbie dolls and then I looked closely at several individual Barbie dolls, noticing how the company that makes Barbie, Mattel, markets individual dolls. I looked closely at several of the over one-hundred Barbie dolls in the aisle; their ethnicity, body type, clothing, careers and accessories.



The Doll Wall

The most coveted place in the toy store. If toys could talk, they might tell you how jealous they are of Barbie. Of course, toys are inanimate objects, and if they have thoughts, they keep them to themselves. (Although, I think "Toy Story" just might be true....)

When my mom, my sister, and I were in the Barbie aisle at Target, two four-year old girls and their dad were in the aisle with us. The two little girls "ooohed" and "ahhhed" as they watched the spinning Disney Barbie Princess display. The six Barbie Princesses twirled around slowly, their tiaras sparkling, and the two little girls jumped up and down and clapped their hands in excitement. We laughed at their excitement and their dad just shook his head in disbelief. All this for Barbie Princesses?


In the end, it's all a matter of opinion, but my mission is to try to help you see both sides of the story. It's easy to demonize toy companies for idealizing the female figure, but can you really imagine dolls as a 100% true representation of our society? If so, over 40% of Barbie dolls would be overweight. Would little girls really buy an overweight Barbie who was having a bad hair day? But, then again, I think that if Barbie dolls reflected the reality of how young women actually look, that that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Also, the percentage of Americans who are of mixed race and of races other than Caucasian is growing, but I did not see this changing ethnic and racial reality reflected in the Barbie doll aisle.

My Barbie Doll Memories

I don't so much remember playing with Barbie as just holding her in my hand. I can't fathom my expression, but I don't detect anything truly negative or positive. My main reason for even asking for a Barbie was to get the plastic animals that came with her. The Barbie Vet and the Barbie Grooming Salon came with plastic dogs and cats and lots of animal grooming accessories--this is what I really wanted. I remember playing with my Barbie plastic animals for hours and hours, putting them through quests and trials in the dome of my imagination. Barbie herself was soon forgotten in the back of the toy closet. I thought that Barbie was the accessory.

Dolls as "Girl Toys"

The baby doll was perhaps the first doll to emerge as a girl's toy. It's main purpose was to teach little girls about caring for a real baby. Baby dolls have not, as far as I know, ever been solely responsible for taking away a young girl's chance of being happy with who she is. Then came the Barbie fashion doll and I think everything changed. The first Barbie was sold in 1959. Fifty years later, Barbie seems to be just as popular as ever.

As I walk along the Barbie aisle, Barbie's empty-headed smile follows me everywhere I go. Her long blond hair to the small of her back, her Malibu tan is dark, but not enough, mind you, to signal a possible mixed-race heritage. Oh no. Is this truly the picture of perfection? No, we just think it is. But in our world, I fear this will soon be the same thing. Perhaps it already is for some.

Dolls can be a reflection of an untenable goal of perfection, for plastic is immune to the natural causes of "ugliness." No pores to get clogged, no need to watch what they eat, no need for expensive products to make them feel "beautiful," because their perfection is manufactured, not left up to chance and genetics. Is it healthy to chase after the Barbie body? Not at all.

Beauty according to Barbie

- Bulimic and Anorexic are the new healthy

- Small? forget about it. Tall equals hot, short equals not

- Get a dye job girls! Not blond, not pretty

- If you are not Caucasian or don't look it, get out of the spotlight! You are not destined to be the successful one.

- Get Breast implants or get out!

Not exactly the things you want your little girls to hear or to think about themselves. This dark message is clocked in hot pink sweaters and that dumb I-will-believe-anything smile. On a lighter note, the Barbie manufacturers have made an effort to redeem themselves. The "I Can Be..." Barbie collection is, albeit in the same body, showing that a girl is more than just a pretty face. Vets, race car drivers, doctors, babysitters, and swimming instructors are some of the dolls in the collection. The race car driver doll is based on female race car driver Danica Patrick.

But even the veterinarian Barbie is dressed in baby pink and green and she wears pink high heels and a short skirt. I have never seen a female vet dressed like that. They wear blue or green scrubs, a white lab coat and comfortable shoes. After all, they work on their feet all day. Most women in the United States today work at office or service jobs. A race car driver is still a rare career choice for a woman. Why not independent business owner Barbie or lawyer Barbie or administrative assistant Barbie? My aunt has her own business making and selling handmade chocolates, so why not create a small business owner Barbie, with customizable placards and accessories and other items to fit a small shop of some sort.

I think that Mattel has a responsibility to create and sell a healthy, independent, kick-butt, multiracial Barbie doll. My mom was surprised that after all this time, there were not more African-American, Asian, Latino, and obviously mixed-race Barbie dolls. A few dolls were obviously African-American, but most were varying shades of white. Maybe they were Asian? Maybe they were Latino? Because the Barbie "mold" remains the same, no matter what ethnicity the Barbie actually is, my mom, my sister and I found that Barbie dolls pretty much look alike: same body, same eyes, same face. Their eye color ranged from green to blue to brown, but their eyes were always shaped the same.


I think the girls of the world are ready for a healthy, independent, kick-butt, multi-racial Barbie. If only Mattel would make it happen. In some ways the company has improved. In a newly released collection, called "Barbie Basics," there are 12 dolls, some of which show defined signs of different ethnicity. A collectors item, a Barbie modeled after the Greek goddess of housework and war, Athena, has been released, as well as, dare I believe it, one with flat feet? Now, if they could change that smile that creeps me out so much, and have her pack on some needed pounds. Needless to say the world is turning, and life has a problem with being held down to one form of mind--or doll shape.