Prelude: The Barbie Art Project that Made its Point Before I Could Start it (and How it Almost Didn’t Get Off the Ground)

Representation Matters Barbie

Simple Premise: Every kid should have a doll family that looks like their family or the family they want one day. How hard could this be to DIY a less pink, more inclusive Barbie set? It should be a simple case of a few repaints and mixing a few doll set. I’m from a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, blended family, and I’m gay I wanted to use some of these elements to create a representative American Barbie family. I dabble in doll making and collecting from time to time but have really basic skills. This is a simple project anyone could do with supplies they already have at home (probably).

Why Barbie? I had a ton of Barbies growing up I love them. I even have a few still around. My mother debated for a long time letting me play with Barbie, I practically begged for one. I was over the moon on my fifth birthday I received nothing but dolls once my mother acquiesced. I knew other girls with huge Barbie collections and some with only a few “earthy” dolls in only the most puritanical frocks and baby slings. What do you do? Where is the line of acceptable? Barbie seems to be the litmus test of feminism “will you let your kids play with her?” My favorite short story is Sandra Cisneros’ feminist “BarbieQ” about a fire sale that leads girls to get an entire set of “less-than-perfect” Barbies to play with like their wealthier peers.

She’s so complicated, contentious, and people are always critical of her.

So basically she really is representative of the All-American Woman.

Feminism is about choice. Pink shaming girls and boys is not celebrating choice. Some kids like to play with dolls. They like to play house. They like pink. They like twirling in dresses. I was one of those kids. Some girls, despite our, perhaps misguided feminist efforts, like princess culture. They still can grow up to be productive adults. It’s okay.

This is lamented by the author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter when her daughter decides she is out of her princess phase dismissively calls that stuff “too pinky-pink.” The author is left to wonder, did she cause this remark through her lamentations against princess culture or is her daughter over her pink phase on her own?

These things aren’t necessarily anti-feminist.

Obviously the dark side of Barbie is promoting femininity based on rigid beauty standards. She’s mostly too thin and too blond and yes far too capitalist to be a wholesome toy for many parents.

Perhaps the problems with Barbie are not in the choices represented of pretty, pink, and femme but in the ones not explored. How easy would it be to provide more options with minimal modifications to the dolls and play sets?

Apparently very hard.

While busting out of some traditional roles, there is still no baseball Barbie, loose baggy clothing Barbie, Barbie, or anything remotely…ungirly. Barbie can be whatever she wants to be as long as it’s high femme. I’m upset the Amy Wambach Barbie was only a one off. I would have shelled out quite a bit for a copy or two.  The other side of the isle isn’t much help either. I looked for G.I. Joe sets hoping for a tent or something and found only guns. Joe does not have a little brother and you’ll never see him in the field baby-wearing. That side of the toy isle seems just as toxic. The lines are drawn it seems and there are no women in combat and no men with babies or twirly skirts.  

In a girls can do anything and boys can do anything world how do we make an inclusive toy world for kids? They need to see this, the bright pink mostly-girl Barbies scream not for boys! (Although once there was a Big Brother Ken with front pack carrier! It was cool). While girls remain under represented with only 2 dolls in Target’s superhero isle, Wonder Woman, and Black Widow both white both skinny. Here is a good place to mention my girlfriend does not see this as quite as dire as I do. Some kids, her for instance, didn’t really play with dolls.

Fair. But lets say a child does play with dolls or wants to.

On the pro side, Barbie is chic and progressive. They are inexpensive enough to be used as a canvas for mods but also large enough for beginners. I’ve been modifying my Barbie’s since I was young. Also in limited way Barbie does have some boys and men dolls so it seems a good place to start.

Moding opens a wider range of who and what Barbie can be from princess doctor to zombie princess. Moding the dolls allows more control over the story lines. More choices. However at least a base for the dolls must exist.

Barbie is plastic.

She’s had many career and facial changes over the years and remains a material feminist. Barbra Millicent Roberts as her creator named her, was made to combat all the baby dolls on the market. She was a fashion doll for older girls, meant to live a luxurious life of wealthy single girl. As Barbie users became younger Barbie was given a make-over to have wider features and easer to remove clothing (seriously Cinderella Ate My Daughter is worth picking up at the library a brief history of Barbie can be found within its pages.) You can still tell a doll for playing with and a doll for collectors based on these features.

Over the years this has been tweaked.

Briefly Mattel had a disastrous but compulsively collectable line called the Happy Family. The Happy Family followed not Barbie, but her friend Midge. Midge apparently made different choices after college, she had a family and was even expecting another child (and it was very controversial). Sets in the happy family line were not garishly pink but blue and white. Fathers, sons, and grandparents were made in both white and black (but not Hispanic). Midges in boxes can still be found circulating the internet for inane amounts of money. But other than this brief foray, Barbie isn’t much of a family woman save for in times of crisis, or at least that’s my current theory. 

 Today’s Barbie Sister sets seem to imply something devastating happened to the Roberts parents and the eldest took over as guardian and executor of the Roberts’ family fortune. The dream house has room for a three sink vanity to, I suppose, keep down the hectic morning routines of a modern career woman raising her three siblings.

Barbie also had a make-under, I imagine because raising one’s siblings lead little time for long morning routines. Opting out of the elaborately stenciled eye shadow she wears some simple lipstick. She drives a purple SUV or convertible or camper and lives in several Malibu, fully furnished luxury apartments, yet still goes to work as a ballerina vet. How does she do it? Perhaps the only realistic career left seems to be teacher, who but an heiress could afford to be a public school teacher?

Maybe it was naive to think underrepresented dolls were not…um under represented. I remembered more diverse dolls as they came out. I remembered a Barbie in a wheel chair, a diverse range of skin tones and careers. It seems these are only momentary bursts of diversity in an otherwise homogeneous set.

The actual project results were staggering, apparently you needed to buy these dolls as they came out, years before you actually have children. This wasn’t an issue of buying some dolls to make a family. The dolls weren’t there to buy anymore. You’ll have to guess at ability level, racial make-up and interest ahead of time. Barbie sets seem to exist moment to moment, which yes, does make them collectible but makes for a bit of a scramble for putting together something for actual children. 

Currently Becky, aptly named white Friend of Barbie is the only one with a wheelchair and is currently only available in the aftermarket. Unlike the commercially available True Hope Moxie Girl doll, a bald Barbie, Ella, was made but could only be specially requested by children’s hospitals.

Ella proves representation does matter. You can Google and see her smiling with young cancer patients. A commercially available Ella would help explain other conditions to children like alopecia. Even as a hospital only release this was a limited run. A change.org petition was successful in getting the line continued, before that even this doll was slated to halt production.  Ella is white. Ella is only white. At the time of writing the True Hope Moxie Dolls which came in male and female and a range of skin tones are discontinued. Guess you need to pre-buy dolls in the event you have a kid and the kid gets sick or be poised and ready with a change.org petition. Seems like the type of foresight no parent can be expected to have.

Goodwill had few Bratz and Barbie options picked over weekly by either actual families or possibly re-sellers. And I saw a sea of white dolls and a single black one. I don’t live in an all-white area either.

Various doll makers have attempted to fill the racial divide. Kenya dolls came on to the market in 1992 and provided beautiful natural hair dolls for brown girls. This line celebrated a brief relaunch in 2012 but at the time of writing seem to fall into the dreaded aftermarket collector’s items category. Also the Kenya line featured baby dolls, adult fashion doll men and women, but only in the 5” category only girls.

I’m beginning to wonder if someone should be put in charge of relaunching Change.org petitions every decade or so. It seems limited runs happen when enough people decide they will buy one but then the lines fall out of fashion. Little boys it seems are out of fashion.

I’m privileged enough to have had a bit of capital to spend on this project as well as having more than a few venues to resell what I didn’t need. But the lengths I had to go were a bit…well extreme. And at the time of writing I still did not locate a boy toddler doll of color (update I did!) or otherwise in good condition at a reasonable price. Right now I have one Dollar General 4” doll I did a repaint on. But noticed her hair is only rooted in a halo. Her hair cannot be styled.  I understand every Barbie set can’t be in existence forever and Mattel needs to create dolls that fit with current trends, but this is a 180. There are literally no families, no toddlers, and very few babies. What child doesn’t play with babies? You have to buy the neonatologist for the infants. The only Krissys in production are part of the baby doctor set and come pre-segregated (and there’s no Hispanic, Asian or mixed babies or doctors. White Barbie come with white babies, black Nikki comes with a black and a brown baby). This is echoed in the Amazon reviews for the doll calling the babies of color “hard to find” and talk about their delighted children at finally have full family sets.

Apparently I have been out of the Barbie loop. As a kid I had lots of different aged Barbies, well a variety of under 30 year old Barbies, anyway. I had Krissy (the infant), Kelly (the toddler, my favorite), Skipper, Stacey who always seemed of interchangeable ages to me, and of course Barbies, Midges, (but no Nikkis).

If you want white Krissys they can be found in abundance on ebay.

If the demand is there for dolls of color why isn’t the supply? It might be that babies don’t make for good movie plot lines. Aged up Chelsea is in some type of puppy adventure flick. Kelly, not so much. The Kelly doll never seemed to really know what it wanted to be. Sometimes she came with diapers and a crib and others she came decked out as famous Hollywood characters like a low rent Madame Alexander Doll. Either way, toddlers are out while puppies are in. 

Sometime between being a ballerina vet (no really, that’s one set and one busy Barbie) and a chef, astronaut, game developer, Barbie stopped being a caregiver. Barbie cribs are no more. The nursery in the dream house is a pet room. Fine. Modern Barbie has a high stress career, no kids but lots of dogs. I can’t tell if this era’s Barbie is aimed at millennials or their children. Although Target sells a medical team of Barbies online and that admittedly is very cool.

I understand every set can’t be made all the time and I know Mattel took quite a bit of flak for the Happy Family Dolls. However, there seems to be a real disconnect between the dolls Mattel wants to make and what kids play with. Yes, a kid will play with any age “dolly” but young children are fascinated by babies, particularly if they have siblings. They want to feed the baby and dress the baby and put the baby to bed. They like families. In the midst of being “anything” Barbie apparently cannot be part of a young family. Additionally dolls are a wonderful resource for explaining life changes to children or for them to play out scenarios in their own lives. Barbie gets a new little brother like you are getting a new little brother. Or you are adopted like Kelly is adopted. Ken has Kelly and Tommy on the weekends and Barbie has them during the week.

I won’t pin the blame exclusively on Barbie. I looked at similarly heteronormative fuzzy animal families called the Calico Critters at Michaels. Sold in complete family sets which did include babies but all had a mother and a father. These made me long for Barbie’s ‘sold separately’ tagline.  To make a representative set one would have to buy two or three families and mix and match (particularly to show an adoption where children did not look like the parents), each family on sale retails for $19.99, $40+ for a mix and match is asking a bit much. It seems diversity has not made it very far into the toy isle. Even Playmobil leaves a bit of reconstructing to do to make a queer and/or multiracial family.

I am so sorry if this is your reality as a parent to a child of color. This was terrible. If you find a toddler doll then you must look for gender neutral clothing. Apparently the only boy doll in the Chelsea line is white. So you have to track down a friend of Kelly then track down clothing (on very savage bidding wars mind you) 4” dolls are not common. Until recently one had to search online for how to turn an American Girl into an American Boy. Boys with Bitty Babies were overwhelmed by pink layette sets. These are not user friendly. There are pictures online of Little Sister Kelly becoming a Tommy doll after a repaint and haircut.

This is hopefully changing.

There are some places I see strides, albeit possibly accidental. Target has a line of Superhero Girl dolls. Almost every girl they picked for the new series is canonically queer. As girls get older and branch into the comics they will find queer role models. Batgirl is a lesbian and Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy end up together.

This does not solve my doll family dilemma however as in their current form the girls are high school students. Maybe they’d make cute queer prom dates but I’m not quite ready to see them settle down. They are, however, about Barbie sized. And yes, I have no children yet and purchased them because what if in a few years we are no longer in a feminist upswing for toys?

After a video of little girls sobbing when their mother bought them black dolls went viral, more progressive parents are making a point to get their children a wider range of doll in different skin tones. This will in turn help the aftermarket, eventually. We are not there yet. The demand is only starting to be there. American Boy is now a thing, but one has to wonder if this is also just a phase of marketing? If you don’t have a son in the next few years will you be searching ebay for an affordable “collectable” or running for the craft scissors to make Molly a Mark?

If you have the time or desire to relist them, ebay lots can be useful. Individually many of these items were priced too high to consider together. I should also mention I have a weird relationship to ebay. I use it once for a few weeks every few years then abandon it entirely. It’s a very time consuming way to shop. The buy it now option is unreasonable for items considered collectable (which is almost everything). A black Ryan toddler doll ran about $25 unless bought in a lot. The lots mostly contained white friends of Kelly and a few girls of color. Good luck tracking down a Hispanic Nina friend of Kelly.

The demand is clearly there, as seen in the aftermarket where Krissys, Kellys, Ryans, and Tommys dominate. Kelly clothing is particularly hard to come by in bulk at a reasonable price even with prior use. OOAK (one of a kind) furniture sets for Barbie or Monster High frequent feature a crib. For what exactly? Neither line has babies. Although, you can find plenty of tutorials on how to repaint a baby doll to look like monster high doll.

The aftermarket re-marginalizes the underrepresented group. There just aren’t many black Krissys, Ryans and Tommys, not to the extent there are Kellys. The ones that exist have a proclivity to be labeled “rare.”  

So the underrepresented remain underrepresented for a reason.

Where Barbie is diverse was also a problem:

While I applaud Mattel for more body diversity, the lack of consistency means some clothes only fit certain Barbies. The idea of measuring, making patterns, and sewing individual patterns is so repellant to me. I bought a few cheap generic sets on Amazon from China to modify without starting from scratch and one extra set of legitimate Barbie clothes for a pair of pants. The sets from China were too little to provide much coverage on my “tall” Fashionista, Alix, whom I intended to make more masculine. The shirts can be easily sewn into Kelly dresses or onesies. If you want to uber mom (or uber auntie) this you could make custom from scratch clothing. I had a ton of homemade Barbie clothes growing up, but there was one pattern. Barbie scrubs might be a good option if they are baggy enough.

I opted to buy large cheap lots of vintage Ken clothes (he’s a bit narrower than contemporary Ken, can we talk about unrealistic body standards? Like how Ken is ripped?). Some of the shorts, sweatshirts, and sweaters worked fine as is because they were cute and baggy. Shirt pants combos needed to be taken in a bit from the back, but as they get most of their shape from the doll, they just needed to be downsized. Pants can be sewn rolled up.

Minimal sewing was the goal here.

This project highlighted some very big inequalities in the toy world. For starters, you can’t get sets that look like real families. You can’t get masculine fashion dolls (although again, I would shell out for some dapper Barbies) or feminine male fashion dolls (dresses won’t fit Ken. He cannot be a queen). At best you get a mom, a dad, a boy, a girl, and a gender neutral baby is all there is. That isn’t really what families look like anymore. Pregnant Midge may have been slammed for appearing like a single mom when she hit the shelves, but how many kids actually have single moms? How many adopted kids don’t look like their parents? These normative sets only serve to highlight how abnormal some families are, how something is missing from them. I’d like to see more diversity, perhaps a child with many dolls or figurines could be encouraged to make all kinds of families. One kid could have two dads, one could have two moms, another could only have a mom, and one could be raised by grandparents. A boy dolls can wear girls clothes, and a girl doll can wear boys clothes. Although, as long as many sets of toys are required to mix and match, only wealthier kids will have this experience the same way they have their custom American Girl and Boy dolls. 

More to come...