"Barbie and Ken are married, so let's put them Skipper, of their fascinatingly cunning clothing for the purposes ofĮxamination and discussion. Of babymaking that led to our stripping all of the dolls, including I believe it was one of Ursula's accounts
The opposite was true of the Verboten girls, who practically vibrated Girl doll with long blond hair who was supposed to be Barbie's kid sister. Had to play Barbie, I played with Skipper, the flat-chested little I didn't know why, but I didn't like to play with my Barbies: SomethingĪbout Barbie's gratuitously female body made me deeply uncomfortable, asĭid Ken's undifferentiated pubic lump. I wore undershirtsĪnd shorts under my dresses and rubber-banded my knee socks so they'd stay Marriage was unhappy and it made me an anxious child. We played at their house because mine was too frightening. I spent that summer lugging my Barbie Dream House up the sidewalk to their To the back end of our cul-de-sac right after I completed second grade, and Made me the neurotic, suspicious, beach-phobic person I am today.īY KATE MOSES | The "Verbotens" were from Kansas, which was as exotic as anything I'dĮver known in the small, rural California town where I grew up. So there you have it, the Barbie Moment that Some time later, I learned that the doll she had bought me wasn'tĮven a Barbie, it was a Midge. Although this was far from theįlowing-haired blond doll of my dreams, I accepted my mother's peace Good Barbies got sent to real toy stores. Only Barbies in the store had red hair and short bubble hairdos - all the She was feeling so guilty, inįact, that she magnanimously offered to buy me a Barbie. To a nearby odds and ends store to buy toys. Afterwards,Īpparently feeling guilty (as she damn well should have), my mother took us She took us to theĭoctor, whose office was near the beach, for booster shots. However, she did not take us to the beach. One day, my mother told my younger sister and me that she was taking us to the beach. As if a kid wouldn't know theĭifference! To spite her, I grew up to be a rock critic.Īnyway, back to my Barbie Moment, such as it is. What I got was an album of Beatles songs as sung by those Once, when I was 6, I asked her for aīeatles album. Instead, I received a succession of no-name Barbie knock-offs.
Oh, I remember asking my motherįor one, preferably with long blond hair and a fishtail evening gown. In fact, I don't have anyīarbie Moments, never having had a Barbie. MILLMAN | I don't have any happy Barbie Moments. N O - N A M E _B A R B I E _K N O C K - O F F Adored and reviled, Barbie is a fetish and an objet de culte, eerily reminiscent of the sleek, faceless Greek Cycladic idols She's no pushover: Barbie to me has the glittering, militant panache of Sexual identity that would lead, among other things, to an epidemic ofĪnorexia and bulimia among white middle-class girls. Only became a major sexual persona influencing celebrity style from Farrahįawcett to Ivana Trump, but she ominously prefigured the destabilization of Worked for a college summer in the toy department at Woolworth's, Iĭefinitely believe that toy sales are a key to the Zeitgeist.
Pornographically android body type was so different from that of the pudgy,Ĭuddly, Shirley Temple-like moppets that came before her. However, I haveįollowed her rise to power with interest, since her streamlined, P O R N O G R A P H I C A L L Y _A N D R O I D _B A R B I EīY CAMILLE PAGLIA | Barbie's arrival on the scene was well after my own childhood (when I loathedĭolls and loved swords and other Amazonian regalia).
Hair all mussed and one of her toeshoes floating in the dog dish. After Joe left, she'd hang around naked for days, with her We learned a lot from Barbie, in the vein of all that scurrilous Her, and if you weren't rich, chances are she only had a couple of outfitsĪnyway. This is the only thing you can do with a Barbie, besides dress Then we'd clack their plastic bodies together for a hot round of inanimate Would make him pull a gun or compel him to rip the clothes off Barbie, who Something violent would happen Joe would have a 'Nam flashback, or something "Oh, no, I can't!" she would twitter, porn-thirstily. Then we'd stripīarbie real slow, replete with dialogue like, "Take off your tu-tu, Barbie," GI Joe would be to peel his camo fatigues off and have Barbie stare at the mound ofīrown plastic where his command unit was supposed to be. The first thing any of us would do around a Barbie is no unconscious sexual icon to children.