![]() ![]() I believe she came with a scale and had these little diet books with the “diet advice” in them that was like, “Don’t eat.” Barbies in the early days really doubled down on both unrealistic beauty standards and on diet culture. Those critiques weren’t necessarily wrong. It’s like what you said, there’s historically been a wave of articles critiquing her body and calling out these unrealistic proportions and the expectations they put on young girls. In the ’70s, there was a protest of the New York Toy Fair, where people were protesting, in part, against Barbie and how sexist she was. Like, I remember multiple stories about how Barbie’s proportions are actually anatomically impossible. I’m an old millennial, and I think when you see this excitement toward Barbie, it feels a little weird because, in my adult life, I think I’ve seen several different iterations of Barbie and Mattel criticized for being sexist. On that note - I wanted to ask you about criticism. I don’t know what kind of business Barbie was supposed to be in, but apparently that’s what Mattel thought businesswomen were wearing to the office. Funnily enough, she also had a kind of boater hat that had a ribbon around it, which is very strange. ![]() I don’t think she did, but I’m pretty sure she came with a giant brick of a cellphone and a little plastic business briefcase. Picturesĭoes Day-to-Night Barbie like espresso martinis? Issa Rae (center) as a Barbie who is president in Barbie. You take off the jacket and turn the suit skirt into this party skirt, and she’d be ready for a night on the town. Her pink business suit - you would essentially reverse it. You know how a mullet is business in the front and party in the back? That was her. She is a Barbie that wears a little pink suit, and the outfit is reversible. ![]() What is the Day-to-Night Barbie? Is it just a Barbie that has a job and then goes out? But that doesn’t really suit my fantasy because I would prefer to be something a little more glamorous, more frivolous, you know? I’m very much a Day-to-Night Barbie, I guess. They still identify that way as an adult. They’re giving you this, like, key piece of themselves. Like, when they say, “I was a Peaches ’n Cream Barbie,” “I was a Day-to-Night Barbie,” they’re giving you their personality. It’s almost like they’re telling you what their sign is astrologically. When I’ve been on book tour, there are people that will come up to me and they’ll tell me their favorite Barbie. I see people planning their outfits or, what you saw last summer which you’re seeing again, which is the Barbie-core stuff coming - not just the clothes, but also the interiors, and really anywhere where you can have that moment of exuberant girliness. There’s an entire wave of people that have grown up with this toy that feel this attachment and want to have this giddy moment. You know, walking Barbie up and down the plastic stairs and having her jump into the Corvette and drive off into the sunset. I mean, it’s this moment where you recognize that you’re not alone - there’s so many other people that are just desperate to get back into their toy box and want to relive their moments they had in their childhood bedroom. My criticism is an act of love.ĭoes the fanfare surrounding the movie surprise you? I’m sort of like a mother that wags her finger at a beloved child - in this case Barbie - being like, you could do better, you know? But I do love Barbie. Which might be a little bit of a surprise because in my book I do have criticisms. Loving Barbie, she explains, isn’t as simple as it seems. To better understand Barbie culture, Barbie’s history, and what we mean when we talk about Barbie, I spoke to Maria Teresa Hart, a Barbie expert and author of Doll, which she describes as a “non-fiction pop-culture feminist critique of dolls, doll history, and doll culture.”
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