The first Barbie made her debut on March 9, 1959. Though the doll was originally created to serve as a “grown up” figure for the imaginations of young girls, it definitely hasn’t always been seen that way. No one can deny that Barbie’s popularity covers a range of media. From dolls to books, music, and movies, Barbie has completely infiltrated our homes. But the problem was never with the doll’s popularity; it was with the type of Barbie that was made popular.
The doll's appearance has definitely undergone some serious changes, but its most significant alteration happened on Thursday, Jan. 28, when Mattel gave Barbie a makeover that was long overdue. The 2016 Barbie Fashionistas doll line has added 23 new dolls and includes a variety of features: seven skin tones, 24 hairstyles, and 22 eye colors. Mattel also released three new body types: curvy, tall, and petite.
This is significant because of the effect this redesign will have on Barbie's main target audience: young girls. We spend a lot of time in society trying to find ways to boost the confidence of young girls and encourage them to have bigger aspirations in life. They can’t accurately do that if the dolls only look one way. They can imagine the girl who looks like Barbie being an astronaut, or a teacher, or a scientist, but they can’t picture themselves because that’s not what they look like. The imagination, the creativity, and therefore, the aspiration to become that woman are halted by the image that the Original Barbie represented for these young girls.
Don’t get the wrong idea -- I love Barbie. To this day, I still get excited when I watch "Fairytopia" or "Rapunzel"; every Christmas I put on my jammies and I dance along to "The Nutcracker"; and I can probablydefinitely quote the entirety of "The Princess and the Pauper" by heart. Barbie was a big part of my childhood, and though I don’t love the Barbie I grew up with any less, I would’ve loved to have seen a Barbie that I could’ve actually imagined myself as. I always imagined myself doing things with Barbie and not as her.
As Victoria M. Massie put it: "Representation (and its lack thereof) can affect your self-esteem."
As a young light-skinned girl, I struggled a lot to find a Barbie that I really liked because she was either white or dark-skinned. I’m sure I wasn’t the only girl who had this issue, and I cannot begin to describe the amount of joy I feel about being able to have a doll that looks more like me. (Sorry, American Girl.)
But this isn’t just an achievement for young girls of color. The best part about this new line is that it can be inspirational for all girls. When I saw a picture of a Barbie with a tall, lean figure and bright red, curly hair, I immediately thought of a friend of mine that I went to high school with. And it’s that connection that’s so important for all girls -- no matter what race, age, size, or shape -- to realize. Because of this line, girls have a visual representation of what it looks like for them to be that astronaut with curly red hair, that beautifully curvy teacher, that super-tall scientist. They can their friends. They can see themselves.
The Original Barbie will continue to be made, despite some of the pushback from critics, but Mattel believes that "by introducing more variety into the line, Barbie is offering girls choices that are more reflective of the world they see today." And I agree. Whether the Original Barbie is on the shelf or not, what matters is that there is a doll on the shelf that offers girls a different standard of beauty: a body-positive option.
Because we don’t all come in one shape, size, or color, and now Barbie won’t either.
