Barbie...

Happy belated birthday Barbie! Fifty years ago yesterday, Barbie had her debut at the International Toy Fair in NYC, and after hundreds of careers, several physical alterations (plastic surgery?) and a few attitude adjustments, she is still an ageless, timeless icon of Western culture. The original Barbie (both a blond and a brunette) was a teenage fashion model, filling out (barely) a black and white bathing suit with a physiologically impossible figure. Since, she’s been an astronaut, an Olympic swimmer, a firefighter, a lifeguard (think Baywatch), a pilot and a babysitter. Who else can say they’ve worked at McDonald’s (in ’83) and seen the White House as America’s President (2000)? While I’m not sure that this doll has aged at all (it’s been a while since I’ve seen a Barbie doll), she has undergone a few changes. Her original measurements would have made her, as a real-life human being, 5 feet 9 inches, with the following measurements: 36” (chest), 18” (waist), 33” (hips). According to a Finnish study, she would have “lacked the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.” Surprise, surprise... That might have been because she’d been following her own advice; 1965’s Slumber Party Barbie came with a scale (reading 110 lbs) and a book entitled How to Lose Weight (“Don’t Eat”). This isn’t the only advice that women/girls haven’t gobbled up (paaaah) or objected to; “Math class is tough” sparked just a wee bit of outrage among “feminists” around the world. At least she didn’t’ say, “Thinking is for losers” or “Let me fetch your slippers, dear husband” or “Well, I don’t need the right to vote”; all three of these phrases were supposedly considered for Miss Teen Talk. Anyways, Barbie is a big deal (ask anyone attending the annual National Barbie Doll Collectors Convention) and, even at 50, she’s still the most popular doll in the world.

I don’t remember being too into Barbie dolls when I was little, but I do remember loving my Hot Looks doll; I googled “popular 80s dolls” and a whole whack of lists appeared, with a ridiculous number of dolls. One year for Christmas we each got a Hot Looks doll and I’m pretty sure I got this one:


I remember loving her clothes (who wouldn’t) and just learned that her name is Elkie, that she’s from Sweden, and that her motto is, “Exercise is my life!” Hmm… strange – exercise is my life. Elkie and her Hot Looks buddies (Zizi, Chelsea and Mimi) weren’t nearly as popular as Barbie was, and have long since been in off-shelf doll-land. I wonder whatever happened to our Hot Looks Dolls…