AlterNet: Barbie's Sordid Sexual History

[marmar]

Barbie's Sordid Sexual History

Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 12:00 AM on January 10, 2009.

Orgies, prostitutes and Zsa Zsa Gabor?



Before Barbie was an astronaut, a businesswoman and Sarah Palin, the busty, blank-eyed doll was a glimmer in the eye of toy designer Jack Ryan, a compulsive swinger who openly patronized prositutes, staged orgies, and strangest of all, was once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor.

According to Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel (a new book about the toy company highlighted in the New York Post) Ryan spent much of his time surrounded by Barbie lookalikes (although presumably the real-life versions had genitals) and generally creeping people out. Gwen Florea, who did the voice of talking Barbie says, "He once said to me he loved me being tall so he could stick his nose in my boobs when he hugged me.”

The book (via the Post) quotes one of Ryan’s friends on the genesis of Barbie:

"When Jack talked about creating Barbie ... it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode, almost like listening to a sexual pervert ... "

Our blog editor Isaac Fitzgerald said:

" ... sad when you think of all the girls who grew up aspiring to look like, what was in the end, just a horndog's limited vision of beauty."

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/118672/barbie%27s_sordid_sexual_history/

[Madam Mossfern]

1. My daughter was forbidden to have a Barbie

Usually I'm quite a liberal parent, but this is one of the places that I put my foot down. I told her that when she looks like a Barbie, then she could have a Barbie. I didn't approve of the values that Barbie embodied (25 years ago); mostly superficial and materialistic. She had instead, Ginny dolls, Rainbow Bright and Strawberry Shortcake, and an entire menagerie of stuffed animals.

[tomreedtoon]

2. Wrong reason to ban Barbie, IMHO.

I have no problem with little girls recognizing that women have breasts and hips, and that they might too some day. (Note I said MIGHT.) My problem with Barbie is her vapidness. In all the years of her existence she has never had a personality or a soul, aside from her possessing a lot of expensive crap. She may play at being a housewife, animal doctor or rainforest defender, but she doesn't believe in anything.

As I said in another place, I'd rather have my completely fictional and impossible-to-achieve-in-reality daughter play with dolls like Harlie Quinn, Catwoman or Poison Ivy. They're vicious killers, thieves and manipulators of men, but they have a career and attitude and they have emotional depth far beyond Barbie. Far better than those commercialized smiley-faced whores Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite.

[madokie]

4. After watching my two stepsons growing up watching some of the goriest shit one could imagine

in the cartoons and video games and neither are madmen now makes me think that maybe it doesn't matter so much as to make a stink about it.
My biggest surprise with being a 'Papa' and seeing the 'toons as granddaughter is watching is they've pretty much cleaned their act up from when her parents were her age.

[Stevenmarc]

6. Vapid?

Excuse me but we are talking about a hunk of plastic, if it lacks a "personality or a soul" that has more to do with the child's imagination and upbringing than anything else.

[tomreedtoon]

18. Check your child's imagination. Give her this.

The only doll still Made in America, because American jobs are all being phased out.

Put a skirt on a stick and give it to your child. See if she gives it a name and tells a story about it. Without prompting from you. If she can't do it, does your child have no imagination?

I'm tempted to say "Of course she doesn't!" but that would be wrong. How can a child imagine without knowing she CAN imagine? That, more than sales or anything else, is why dolls have backstories when they are sold. To give a child the idea that something can be done with the toy. That dreams can be invested in it.

Barbie has no dreams. She's straight consumerism. Mattel has made sure she has no personality and no ruling passions. They wanted her "universal" and made her universally bland, aside from the assorted crap you can buy for her.

[Stevenmarc]

25. Obviously

you missed the word upbringing in my response. Why would you let Mattel usurp parental responsibility, if you don't like the message, you're the parent make your own message, create your own back story.

[Book Lover]

29. Must we go down this road yet again?

Talk about a lack of imagination....

[tomreedtoon]

43. Go down the road or run into a wall. Your choice.

The only reason it is a road is that it goes somewhere. Namely, pointing out that you shouldn't assume a child knows what imagination is. She has to be taught. So does everyone else.

Tell me this; when exactly did manufactured and mass-promoted toys become evil? In the 80's? The 60's? The 30's? Or is this just the sort of stuff that political advocates start griping about when the bill comes due for Christmas?

[Gwendolyn]

35. If a child can't create a story out of a piece of material and a stick...

... then yes, s/he lacks an imagination. My friends and I built entire cities out of mud. Children don't need a "back story" told to them every time they receive a toy. It's the child's job to come up with one. That's why you'll find many children who won't part with the ugliest, one-eyed, one-armed, stuffing falling out teddy bear. It has become "real" to them based on the imagined story the child has written for it.

[Madam Mossfern]

12. Did you just call Strawberry Shortcake a whore?

If you had read my entire post, you would have seen that Barbies at that time promoted horrible materialistic and shallow values.

I wonder how much Strawberry Shortcake gets per trick?

Actually, when my daughter's friends snuck Barbies into the house, they performed thoracic surgery on a couple. I even found one filled with ice in my freezer...'cryogenics' my daughter explained. They were waiting for newer, better technology to perform the proper procedures to cure her.

She is now a research scientist, and when she was a bit younger performed as Janet at Rocky Horror Show showings. I hardly think that forbidden Barbies harmed her development. I asked her about it, and she said that she really didn't care at the time.

[tomreedtoon]

16. Yes she is! Saw her in the (too much) flesh.

For at least two years running, some teen girl interested in body exposure played "Strawberry Shortcake" with her friends at Atlanta's Dragon*Con. She wore it as a "hallway costume" around the hotels, not in the stricter costume competition, because the only prize she wanted was exhibitionism. She wore her cute little strawberry skirt with a hemline where most women wear their belts, and she did a lot of time rolling on the ground, bending over, and being whipped (with a light fleece-strap whip) by the Pieman.

You might call it a corruption of a childhood myth. I think it was a brilliant girl revealing the true character of Strawberry Shortcake. The little tart.

[Madam Mossfern]

19. OMG!

I've ruined my daughter!

[lightningandsnow]

30. Yeah, I wasn't aware that Strawberry Shortcake was a sex worker.

[Norrin Radd]

23. Oddly enough, there were Barbie versions of the Gotham Girls.

Though there is some new company now making them for DC. http://www.dirtybeartoys.com/product.sc?categoryId=1&productId=141

The best ones were the ones made for Batman the Animated Series. (I collect Batman stuff).

[LiberalEsto]

3. I was forbidden to have a Barbie in the early 60s

My mom was horrified when Barbie dolls were introduced.
I got a flat-chested, boring Tammy instead.
All my friends had Barbies, and I felt left out, but in those days, we didn't argue with our parents.
I finally got one when I was 13 and too old to play with dolls any more. I still have it somewhere.

[juno jones]

5. Ahh Barbies

we cut their hair and they rode Breyer Horses and swam in the lagoon bathtub with the Sunshine Fanily. They got over on stupid old GIJoe and the Planet of the Apes characters (who were always the 'bad guys' in our scenarios) with the help of Billy West and Princess Wildfower. In the end peace and enviromental balance was restored to the Happy Forest.


Oh you mean we were supposed to dress them in designer inspired outfits and aspire to BE like them.

I guess we never got the memo. :rofl:

[InvisibleTouch]

21. Heh. I went my own way with my Barbies too.

In my scenarios, they were the "bad guys," and generally ended up getting eaten by my rubber crocodiles or giant rubber snakes. Hours of fun, I tell you! :)

[juno jones]

38. LOL!

:rofl:

[treestar]

32. In the old days, there were other variations, too

And several Mattel dolls that were not Barbie and had different names. I had "Francie" a brunette, I recall.

Ours fought with each other and tried to romance a bearded GI Joe. We cracked ourselves up by having one go beserk and run all over the Barbie house, upsetting the plastic furniture.

[juno jones]

39. I never had Francie

But a friend of mine did. For some reason, she was always one that everybody wanted to play, I dunno why, but we always had to take turns with her.

Berserk Barbies were always fun!! :)

[hobbit709]

7. Lilli-The original Barbie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild_Lilli_doll

The doll based on a hooker in a cartoon strip.

[Sal Minella]

11. Mattel's objections to Bratz dolls ring a little hollow then, eh. nt

[pipi_k]

8. In defense of Barbie...

I had a Barbie when I was a youngster.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't Barbie or what she "represented" that screwed up my life.

It was other things.

Like clueless or uncaring schoolteachers, having to live under the threat of nuclear obliteration during the late 50s - early 60s, a very dysfunctional (i.e. alcoholic) family life, and other things I can't even recall right now.


Barbie was a relatively benign presence in my life, and actually brought me some comfort and fun.

[Deja Q]

13. .

:hug:

[Thirtieschild]

9. My granddaughter, who had everything, had a three-foot tall Barbie

Happy to say she never played with it, it just stood there. I walked past it one day, looked down -- and saw Michael Jackson. Realized then that's who he wanted to be. Barbie. In the 60s my daughters had Barbies but I don't remember much excitement over them.

[demodonkey]

10. I though Barbie was ugly, and I had a Tammy doll instead, and a Betsty McCall.

Tammy was perkier and had more personality and a bit more realistic shape. Wonder who created her.

Betsy McCall I got because I was a Girl Scout. She could bend her knees!

[JCMach1]

14. My daughters dumped barbie for Littlest Petshop and also Hamtaro

was their choice... :)

[rcrush]

15. This guy must have been fun at parties.

[edbermac]

17. How could Barbie have a sordid sexual history?

Ever see Ken naked? He didn't even have a....you know....:blush:

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Who Said Anything About Ken?

Geez, Barbie is a Californian! You know how those left coasters are! :evilgrin:

GAC

[cali]

22. I turned my Barbie into a vampire

I used to bury her in a little spot under a big copper beech. She may well still be there.

[4 t 4]

24. Ok I guess I am

losing it because what did this have to do with Sarah Palin ? Is it just me ?

[seabeyond]

26. lol lol lol..... me even more. cause i thought i was in a barbie thread.... after

your post i am think sarah, i went into one of the damn sarah threads

been staying out of those.

you are funny

[CTyankee]

45. I actually hanged some of the little plastic people in my doll house.

I used fuzzy yarn. I do not remember why I hanged them, but I did. I just decided it was what I wanted to do.

I think it might have been because I was angry with my family in my own home. Could that have been the case?

[devilgrrl]

27. Barbie represented everything I never wanted to be.

F*** Barbie!

[Book Lover]

28. What? Geez people, Ruth Handler invented Barbie!

http://www.women-inventors.com/Ruth-Handler.asp

This Ryan guy - was he the marketing guy or something? I've never heard of him.

[Skittles]

31. am I the only girl who had Barbies but never aspired to look like her?

I mean, come on

[vanderBeth]

33. Nope

I never understood why people thought I or any girl would think to use the doll as a role model. I used the doll as a doll, i.e. played God. Barbie did what I wanted her to do. If anything, she was modeled after me, but with a pink convertible and house.

[Gwendolyn]

40. Of course not.

She was a rubber thing. I painted her hair with magic markers, and sometimes gave her a mustache.

A friend of my mom's actually made an exact knit facsimile of a barbie twin set complete with oversize buttons for the cardigan portion. It was gorgeous but unwearable because the proportions were so off.

[ContinentalOp]

34. As the father of a 4 year old girl...

It always pisses me off how people get so righteous and judgemental about Barbies and princesses or the color pink. Oh, you let your daughter play with THOSE? But then they don't think twice about letting their sons run around pretending to shoot each other with pretend guns. And of course nobody ever mentions male body image. I grew up playing with He-Man toys FFS and I sure as hell have never looked like him. How many boys turned to steroids thanks to role models like He-Man, Hulk Hogan or Arnold Schwarzeneggar?

[juno jones]

41. Oh come on

Guys are all supposed to look like Stretch Armstrong (and their arms are supposed to go like that too...):)

[Mean_Barbie]

36. sex is always in the mind of its creator

why be suprised if this is true for a doll designer?

[surrealAmerican]

37. In all fairness, a lot of men were ...

... "once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor"; it shouldn't count against him.

[SoCalDem]

42. I had a handicapped doll

I was never a doll-person, but my mother bought me a big ole "walking-doll" (think Frankenstein-monster's gait)..

I got bored with the walking stuff pretty quickly, so I let her try some steps.. she never walked again:(

[Beacool]

44. Barbie, you stupid slut!!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.........

:evilgrin: