Store buyers in quest of the next big plaything found the haughty and voluptuous doll Mattel unveiled at New York City’s Toy Fair in 1959 a bit risqué. And no wonder, considering the doll was modeled on Bild Lilli, a pornographic gag gift in Germany. Undaunted, Mattel cofounder Ruth Handler thumbed her nose at the prissy store buyers and peddled her pride and joy directly to kids via television—a technique the company had pioneered four years earlier with Tommy Burp cap guns. Once little girls saw the impossibly leggy babe named Barbie, Handler reasoned, they would be smitten.
Handler was right. More than 300,000 Barbies were purchased in the first year alone, and she quickly became the bestselling toy in the United States. Her fortunes ebbed somewhat in the crunchy-granola ’70s, when cool kids clamored for natural fibers and shoes with negative heels, not polyester miniskirts and stilettos. But by the greed-is-good ’80s, Barbie roared back with a vengeance, piling up yachts, McMansions, brand-name designer clothes, red plastic Ferraris and an impressive résumé. Her careers reflected the culture as women gained visibility as executives, physicians, airline pilots and real-estate investors.
From the get-go, Barbie served as a teaching tool for the good life, American-style. From her backyard Barbie-Q to her sleek orange roadster to her endless beach gear, she taught little girls what to buy—or, more specifically, what to pressure their parents into buying. Barbie had the taste of a lottery winner. She racked up stuff without any connoisseurship—which often appalled class-conscious mothers more than her tarted-up appearance. Sales of the toy line rocketed upwards until the ’90s, when revenues leveled out at about $1.8 billion annually, with little girls averaging eight Barbies to one over-extended Ken, her male consort.
Now, with Barbie qualified to join AARP, she’s gone global and sales are on the rise again. Last February, Mattel opened a lavish six-story Barbie emporium in Shanghai, China. Barbie’s new mission? Undo the Cultural Revolution. Banish those baggy gray Mao suits. Introduce clothes that are pricey, scanty and fuchsia. The Shanghai store is as much for mothers as children. It features three versions of most outfits: one for Barbie, one for mom and one for the little girl. And in case mom doesn’t realize she’s the target of a re education campaign, the store has sections designed exclusively for her—a cocktail bar with alcoholic drinks and a full-service spa.
Ironically, the ultimate American doll has never been manufactured in the United States. The first dolls were made in Japan and they have come rolling off foreign assembly lines ever since. These days Barbie and her friends mostly come from China—where many of them will stay. And there’s a new career on her résumé: transforming backwaters into markets, one come-hither pump at a time.
M.G. Lord, a cultural critic based in Los Angeles, is the author of Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll and Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science.
Originally published in the December 2009 issue of American History. To subscribe, click here.
