So we started this episode off by talking about the Barbie Liberation Organization’s efforts to ‘liberate’ Barbie’s voice when she was Teen Talk Barbie. This was a huge effort at something called Culture Jamming, something activists do to alter a brand in an effort to make a subversive political statement, among other tactics. We played a snip of the video, but I’m going to drop the whole thing here. You should absolutely watch this treasure!
And to follow up this video, pop over to this link to really dive into the effort the BLO went through to make this happen. It takes actually a lot of work to put something like this together. This link takes you to the page of Beautiful Trouble, a global network of organizers, artists, trainers, and writers who equip social movements with an ever-growing suite of strategic tools and training to help grassroots movements be more creative, effective, and irresistible in the struggle for a better world. They are activists, and they break down exactly what happened, how it happened, and who was involved. So if you want to learn about the tactics involved AND what happened, this is the link for you.
This link will take you over to the Met where they talk about the cultural impact of Barbie and a little bit about the controversies surrounding her.
And here we see the image I referred to when talking about Slumber Party Barbie and her controversial advice on weight loss.
Here’s just a list of controversies Barbie has been in. Whether you think any of these deserve to be controversial or not, that remains to be seen, but they exist. Feel free to talk about this in the comment section though, cause I’d love to hear what you all think about it!
This link switches gears and will talk about the strides Mattel is making toward bringing Barbie into the now. As the article says, we live in a world where people aren’t just tall, skinny, and blonde. Children who play with Barbie aren’t all girls/AFAB, white, able bodied, etc. My kids, for example, a dark-haired and one has glasses and they have queer parents where one is disabled. They need to see themselves and the people they love in their toys, books, and movies, and when they got Barbies that looked like them, they were excited. Now they have chubby Barbies, Barbies with vitiligo, Black Barbies that look like their friends, and Barbies that can wear flat shoes and dresses like a little punk rocker like my older one likes to. Representation matters.
Following I’ll give you some alternatives to Barbie. There’s all kind of options out there. Maybe Barbie costs too much or you want to go plastic free, or maybe you want something Barbie isn’t offering yet, or whatever reason, here’s some choices for you:
For this next button, this collection of dolls represents 5 tribes in Africa with each doll representing a different one. It’s very cool.
And for this last one, it’s a highly customizable doll that comes as essentially a blank slate. I saw it first advertised as basically a nonbinary doll. It start in just a simple, plain tank and shorts and with short, black hair. You can customize it with any mix of the clothes it comes with or the little wig to make a doll that represents something you personally love.
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