Reactions to Kinky and BQA- The Barbie Race

 The poem "Black Barbie History" brings up the issue of Barbie trying to immitate all the races with one mold.
      "Black Barbies look exactly like White barbies.
       Identical molds, not unlike uniform squares
       of Nestle's Dark and Alpine White chocolate bars."  (p 20)
This poems is all about how Mattel's Barbie stands for all women being equal when their dolls portray a different message.  There is not a difference between Black Barbie and White Barbie- she comes from the same mold.  She has "tiny hands, flexed feet, and slight nose" (lline 6).  Mattel gives the impression to little Black girls that they are not beautiful like Barbie unless they have all the white features that Barbie portrays.
   
     BQA goes into more depth about this issue of the African American Barbie.  Rands discusses how the African American Barbie was introduced in 1980.  Matell claims that the doll is "realistically sculpted from head to toe to reflect the natural beauty of African American women" - "although all have long hair, which Mattel considers regrettably inauthentic but necessary for a totally fulfilling play experience" (p 68).

     This whole issue of the African American Barbie really interested me.  Thinking back to my play times with Barbie I never remember seeing a Black Barbie, or any Black Doll for the matter.  I wanted to see if these books that we were reading really did tell the truth that Barbies all look the same no matter what their "race" is.  So I went to Google to see what I could find.

1998 Bead Blast Barbie

2001 Princess of South Africa

1971 Black Barbie (First African American Barbie)

     This website was really helpful.  It shows many of the ethnic Barbies that were produced by Mattel over that past few decades.  This website also shows the change in the White Barbie over the years.  I can see a few on the discrepencies that these two Barbie books are talking about, but then I can see Mattel's side of the story.  I think Mattel did a good job representing the African American woman (no African American woman looks exactly like another either.)  There are Barbie's with wide noses and skinny noses, with American clothing and ethnic clothing, and big lips and little lips, short hair and long.  I see the books point that the majority of African American women may have different feautures than White women, but not everyone.  I really do think the Afircan American woman is just as well represented as the White woman-- everyone is super skinny.  I think that for the most part, the facial feautures are varied enough.  I think an exact representation of every single different looking woman would be really hard to come by.  I think if this was your aim as a parent for diversity and realness, then turn to the American Girl Doll collection.  These dolls have all different feautures, hair styles, elasticities, and a more realistic body shape.
     I think both of these books really bring up interesting social issues about the female ideal in our society.  I also beleive that some of these books go way to far in taking there aggressions out on Barbie.  If I didn't really look at the pictures I would have believed that Barbie was made all from one mold, but this simple is not true.  Mattel has tried to make their Barbie's ethnically appropriate while still trying to keep the "Barbie feel."  Whether this "Barbie feel" is ideal or not is a whole different issue.  It is a very complicated issue, and I am not saying anyone is right or wrong, I'm just looking at the evidence that these passages point too.