It's no secret that the Barbie line has fallen in popularity. Mattel has been accused of turning girls into an army of anorexic narcissists, of being detrimental to the self esteem and potential of our female youth by focusing on hair, make-up, and wardrobe.
Not only is that not what Mattel has done, it actually flies in the face of Ruth Handler's vision. Barbie, to her, was all about possibilities. Barbie went to outer space before any flesh and blood woman did. The current campaign is "You can be anything" which echoes back to the previous "We girls can do anything, right, Barbie?" Barbie, for all the garbling her message got, has always been about empowerment.
But that's not why I'm up on my hot pink soapbox today. Today, I saw a Kickstarter for one line of dolls and a review of another. One I can get behind, the other, not so much.
The kickstarter is for a line of "Curvy" dolls, riding the wave of body positivity. What sold me on the idea, though, isn't the shape of the dolls. The thing I like about this new line, and a lot of the new lines I've seen, is working elbows and knees at a reasonable price. (Their eyeballs don't take up half their face, either, but I digress.) I understand the desire for us larger gals to be represented, but to my mind, it's less important than our brains and our hearts. Articulation is the key, you see, to playing out those brain-and-heart possibilities.
The review I saw was for one of those surprise doll lines - you don't know who you got until you open the package. The focus of it, and apparently of all the doll lines that seem to be popular right now: Hair. Clothes. Looks. Some of them are well articulated, but most are not - they have the basic five points if that.
Now I finally get to my point. If Barbie is losing sales because she's not empowering girls, if she's declining in popularity because she's vanity personified, WHY are we buying these other toys? WHY are we buying Hootchie Babies and Camera Hogs and Immobile But Pretty?
I can't find the Fresh Dolls in my stores. This new line is using a Kickstarter to get out there. I usually find maybe a half-dozen better articulated dolls among all the standard-five Fashionistas and Disney Princesses. Logic dictates it's because they don't sell. So what is selling? What are all those parents that claim to be so concerned about body image and empowerment actually buying?
Hootchie Babies and Camera Hogs and Immobile But Pretty.
Even as we blame a doll with a million careers for anorexia, we're buying toys that are all about vanity. The hypocrisy has me up on my hot pink soapbox today. I'm perfectly fine with you buying a Hootchie Baby - it's your money - but do not tell me about how evil Barbie is while you're doing so.
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