I lost the battle of Barbie long ago. As a young father I banned Barbie from our house. By the time the third daughter popped out, I gave up and let Barbie in. By the time the girls were grown, they left behind a huge can of Barbies, more than two dozen in all. I even bought my first Barbie product, a copy of the sound book Barbie: Action News Reporter.
All of this returned to me upon reading of the death of Ruth Handler, the Mattel entrepreneur and marketing genius, who, among her other accomplishments, was said to have “created Barbie.” A billion Barbies have meant a lot to a lot of girls, so Mrs. Handler deserved the credit she received upon her passing at age 85.
However, while reading her obit, I took special notice of the word “create,” a word that carries considerably more weight than “invent.” Thomas Edison may have invented the phonograph. But God created the world. Just because Mrs. Handler created Barbie does not mean she invented her. That honor goes to a man named Bill Barton, also recently deceased.
Back in the late 1950s, in the little town of Oakland, Ore., population 1,200, Barton took clay into his hands and molded a girl doll that Mattel would call Barbie. From his point of view, he invented her. Then she was a simple doll, unspecific enough to invite girls to use their imaginations while playing with her.
I stumbled upon Barton’s name in a Barbie file during the Christmas season of 1978. Here’s what I wrote for the St. Pete Times:
“Each year at this time, my daughter and I engage in mortal combat, locking horns and wills in what has become known in our house as The Battle of Barbie….Every Christmas my daughter, now 6, wants one. And every Christmas this lonely father takes a stand and says ‘N-O spells No!'”
(With more than 118 millions of Barbie sold by then, what could have been my complaint?)
“I hate Barbie. I hate her grown-up polyethylene breasts, her glamorously expensive outfits, her superstar image, her camera, her microphone, her motor home, her sports car, her bedroom set and especially her blond boyfriend Ken with his rose-tinted sunglasses, his mink coat and his suede jumpsuit….
“I hate the way Barbie dolls turn little girls into greedy little capitalists, preparing them for the time they’ll become greedy teen-age capitalists…
“I hate the way the dolls tear little girls out of innocent childhood and thrust them prematurely into a world of adult sexuality and conspicuous consumption.”
It wasn’t many years later that I saw Madonna rolling across a stage singing “Like a Virgin.” Compared to her, Barbie looked like Laura Ingalls Wilder. But my surrender to Barbie did not occur before meeting a Barbie-hating ally: her inventor.
In a telephone interview back then Barton described how he had invented Barbie as an engineer working for Mattel. “What they had in mind was to create a small doll with reasonably lifelike appearance, and I say reasonable, for both the young child and older girl to use from the standpoint of creativity.” But as Mattel grew, so did Barbie, into a doll whose grown-up figure would measure 39-21-33. With that figure enhancement came accessories costing into the hundreds of dollars.
“They brought her up into a very sexy symbol,” said Barton, “began the whole sequence of clothes for her and that of course was tied into the cosmetic and dress industry.”
He kicked it up a notch: “What I witnessed was the conditioning of children’s minds, for a very definite purpose and this was to have a built-in market for the goods to be sold to these children when they reached three years hence. I know this was true because I was in on helping to film many of the commercials.”
Barton, something of a rugged individualist, left Mattel and worked as a free-lance inventor of energy-saving devices and automobile systems. According to his friend Brian Duvaul, who worked for Barton for 10 years, Barton died last year of cancer at the age of 75. Barton never earned an extra penny for having invented Barbie and groused until the end about what Mattel done to his innocent little lass.
There must lessons here for journalists, perhaps as simple as: Read the clips, dial the phone, and don’t assume you’re the only one who sees the world upside down. There may be a better story lurking beneath the surface.
The Battle of Barbie
by Roy Peter Clark
Reprinted from the St. Petersburg Times, Nov. 23, 1978
Each year at this time, my daughter and I engage in mortal combat, locking horns and wills in what has become known in our house as The Battle of Barbie.
More than 118 million of the dolls have been sold by Mattel Inc. in the last 20 years. That is more than one Barbie doll for every woman living in America today.
Every Christmas my daughter, now 6, wants one. And every Christmas this lonely father takes a stand and says “N-O spells, “No!”
I hate Barbie. I hate her grown-up, polyethylene breasts, her glamorously expensive outfits, her superstar image, her camera, her microphone, her motor home, her sports car, her bedroom set and especially her blond boyfriend Ken with his rose-tinted sunglasses, his mink coat and his suede jumpsuit.
The 1978 J. C. Penney Christmas catalog has two full pages devoted to Barbie and her cult. The 25 items advertised cost a total of $198.91.
I hate the way Barbie dolls turn little girls into greedy little capitalists, preparing them for the time when they’ll become greedy teen-age capitalists.
I hate the way the dolls tear little girls out of innocent childhood and thrust them prematurely into a world of adult sexuality and conspicuous consumption.
When I express my hostility for Barbie and her many imitators, I feel like a voice crying in the desert.
But I am not really alone.
Listen to this criticism from a man named Bill Barton who lives in Oakland, Oregon, a town of 1,200.
“A child’s mind is quite creative and uses the imagination fantastically. I think Barbie is not filling a void for the child but is filling the mind to such an extent that it’s becoming dulled. And (Barbie) is creating something worse. It’s creating a desire of want … an uncontrolled desire of want … I want this, I want that.”
Perhaps you are not convinced by Barton’s criticism of Barbie. After all, he’s kind of an individualist, a man who invents energy-saving devices and builds systems for turbo-charging Mercedes Benz autos. What does he know about Barbie?
He invented her.
In the late ’50s Barton was working for Mattel Inc., a small company that had developed a line of toy weapons and musical instruments and wanted to develop some dolls.
“What they had in mind was to create a small doll with reasonably lifelike appearances, and I say reasonable, for both the young child and older girl to use from the standpoint of creativity,” said Barton by phone from Oregon. The idea was to provide patterns and ideas for children to make their own doll clothes and to create sets in which to enjoy the doll.
But as Mattel grew into the largest toy company in the world, there was a change in leadership at the company and a gradual change in Barbie, a change that disturbed Barton. The blond, plastic beauty got a grown-up figure, a boyfriend and expensive new belongings.
“The company’s thinking changed and sort of went along with this amoral, immoral tendency in our country today,” said Barton. “They brought her up into a very sexy symbol, began the whole sequence of clothes for her and that of course was tied into the cosmetic end dress industry.
“Actually, what I witnessed was the conditioning of children’s minds, for a very definite purpose and this was to have a built-in market for the goods to be sold to these children when they reached three years hence. I know this was true because I was in on helping to film many of the commercials.”
Rita Fire, director of marketing for Mattel, responds from Los Angeles headquarters, “I can’t really believe that Barbie molds society. I don’t think she is that powerful.”
Ms. Fire believes that Barbie’s success derives from her contemporary image. “What we do is to follow what the heck is going on in society. When Barbie started out she was very much a 19509 type of character. In the last few years we’ve made her substantially more glamorous with the razzle dazzle of a Charlie’s Angels-type female, the kind of entertainers that girls see on television now.”
Razzle dazzle is right. Listen to these descriptions of some of the outfits Penneys is selling for Barbie and dolls like her.
Rhinestone Cowgirl: “perfect for evenings at the disco. White satin shirt and pants with silver trim, cowgirl hat, and plastic sandals.”
Evening Dress: “shimmery and exciting for those romantic nights on the town. Metallic knit dress, feather boa, plastic sandals.” These go for $4.49 a shot! I can hear my mother now, sermonizing on the poor people in India.
Ms. Fire insists that through extensive research with mothers and daughters, Mattel has learned that little girls play with Barbie the same way they always have. “Little girls from 4 to 6 years old use Barbie as a toy. They dress her and comb her hair and ‘fiddle’ with her. But from 6 or 7 on, they are more mentally capable of using Barbie to fantasize about the life that is happening to them as well as the life they hope will happen.
“They play with Barbie as though she is themselves. She may go to school, may go to the grocery store; or, on the aspirations of being older, may go out on dates, drive a car, get married, have her own house.”
Although Ms. Fire claims that the physical appearance of the doll does not affect the way little girls play with her, it does influence the marketing of the doll.
“Five or six years ago when we tried to make Barbie a doctor, a career woman — more the type that Women’s Lib would like to see us promote — we couldn’t sell any. It’s tough to lead society … But if we’re too early, we just go nowhere.”
Ms. Fire rejects the notion that Barbie is hurting children or making acquisitive monsters out of them. “I think parents have to assume some responsibility for the kind of doll that they promote in the family.”
Good advice. And as long as the Battle of Barbie rages in my household, I will take my stand. Father’s Last Stand. Yes, Virginia, if Santa tries to leave one this Christmas at our house, I will break his chubby little arm.
