The upcoming Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie, has generated plenty of excitement among moviegoers, partly due to the film’s stellar cast and partly due to the history of the popular children’s toy as well. The cast also includes big industry names like Ryan Gosling, Dua Lipa, and the rising star and the next Doctor Who, Ncuti Gatwa. But it’s the history of the doll that’s the subject of today’s discussion and Barbie’s journey from a vapid cultural linchpin to her ascension as a modern feminist icon.
The story of the Barbie doll begins before she was even conceptualized by Ruth Handler, an American businesswoman credited with the doll’s creation. Ruth watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, to which she often gave adult roles. This was peculiar at the time because most toys aimed at female children were representations of infants. Realizing an obvious gap in the market, Ruth suggested an idea of an adult-modeled doll to the Mattel toy company, whose board of directors wasn’t too enthusiastic about the idea — including Ruth’s husband, Eliot.
However, during a trip to Europe, Ruth came across Bild Lilli, a very popular adult-modeled doll based on a popular female character from a comic book for the German newspaper Bild. In the comic book, Lilli was presented as a blonde working girl (sex worker) who knew what she wanted and wasn’t above using men to get her way. But the most interesting thing about Lilli is that, though she was initially sold to adults (predominantly males), the doll became quite popular with children, who enjoyed dressing Lilli up in separately sold clothes.
Handler purchased a few Bild Lilli dolls and redesigned them when she came back to the US, giving the doll a new name, Barbie, after her own daughter Barbara — in fact, Barbie’s real name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. The first Barbie doll was marketed as a “teenage fashion model.” Even though Ruth Handler’s belief was that it was important for Barbie to have an adult-like appearance, many parents were unhappy about the dolls, especially about the doll’s chest, which had distinct breasts.
Despite the controversies and lawsuits, the Barbie doll was a massive success. It’s safe to say that it broke the industry mold of having infant-looking dolls as the norm, giving young girls a doll that wouldn’t reinforce traditional gender roles but could reflect the girls’ dreams and ambitions better. Still, despite the empowering intent in Ruth Handler’s design, the doll attracted plenty of criticism over its slim figure, large bust, and emphasis on material possessions.
According to contemporaries, Barbie’s figure and image perpetuated the idea of “trophy femininity,” an idea that focused more on appearance over substance. Furthermore, many argued that Barbie’s lack of multicultural representation reinforced the Western-centric standards of beauty, thus excluding those rich with melanin. One can actually see the reason behind these claims; Barbie was a popular consumer good, and those can cement cultural ideals or reflect their changes. And for a time, Barbie did the former.
This was particularly troublesome for young girls; Barbie reinforced unnatural beauty standards and had a body shape that wasn’t attainable without compromising one’s health. In fact, the doll that came with a Barbie Baby-Sits set had a scale that read 110 lbs, which is underweight for a woman of Barbie’s 5’9″ height, giving her a body mass index of 16.2, or borderline between severe and moderate thinness.
In response to increasing criticism, Mattel released the first Black and Hispanic Barbie dolls, challenging the long-held perception that the doll represented a singular standard of beauty. Despite popular belief, the first Black Barbie doll wasn’t introduced in 1980, but in 1968 — Barbie’s friend Christie was obviously of African descent. However, the 1980s “Black Barbie” was the first to have the Barbie name. A similar thing happened to dolls that were described as Hispanic or Latino. You can learn more about the Black Barbie in the new documentary, Black Barbie: A Documentary. Directed by Lagueria Davis, the film scrutinizes the creation and evolution of Black Barbie at Mattel and how the doll evolved into other Black Barbie doll brands.
Mattel actually released several dolls described as Hispanic or Latino, but the first officially recognized Hispanic Barbie was introduced in 1983. Luckily, the cultural representations weren’t the only thing about Barbie that evolved between the doll’s launch and the new millennium. Though she started as a fashion model, Barbie slowly took on a whole range of occupations that were traditionally male, such as police officer, pilot, veterinarian, or rock star, subtly hinting to young girls that their career opportunities were actually limitless.
And so, the most popular doll in the world underwent a metamorphosis from an object of superficiality to a beacon of women’s potential and female empowerment. Sometime after the dawn of the new millennium, Mattel made a more inclusive and realistic Barbie, with a wider range of body types, skin tones, eye colors, and hair textures. The “Fashionists” line of dolls was particularly groundbreaking, as it reflected the shift in societal beauty standards.
But things didn’t end there. We got the Environmentalist Barbie and Robotic Engineer Barbie, the latter of which encourages girls to venture into STEM fields, as prime examples of Barbie dolls championing different social changes and causes. The upcoming Barbie movie offers another opportunity to expand on this narrative of empowerment and to strengthen her role as a symbol of modern feminist ideals. And who better to portray the role than Margot Robbie? Robbie is a vocal advocate for women’s rights, with acting skills that are likely to distance Barbie even further from these past stereotypes.
Barbie’s history is obviously more than a toy’s tale; it’s a reflection of social changes and our own evolving perceptions of beauty, femininity, and gender roles. What began as a mere business idea to satisfy a market gap evolved from being a vapid cultural linchpin to a symbol of female empowerment capable of inspiring young girls to break barriers and dream beyond predefined paths.