Let’s get this straight: Just because Barbie turned forty this year in a much-ballyhooed birthday celebration and there’s NOT A SINGLE LINE on her perfect Polystyrene face is no reason to hate her.
On the other hand, you could say that, like a hundred telemarketers at the bottom of the ocean, it is a good start.
To tell the truth, I’m mad at Mattel, which could have used the Barbster’s birthday to launch not another Happy Holiday Beach Party Barbie but something more realistic. Say, “Rode Hard and Put Up Wet Barbie.”
Rode Hard Barbie works all day selling time-shares. Her coworkers still make fun of her because under “special skills” on her job application, she wrote “twist-n-turn waist” and “rooted eyelashes.” (“Yeah, doll, be sure to mention that when you’re hawking those timeshares. Should make ALL the difference.”)
Rode Hard Barbie comes home to a couple of mouthy teenage daughters who are nothing like the tidy, freckle-faced friend Midge or perky Stacie. Barbie’s daughters never want to go to the beach, try out for the Olympics, or star in an all-girl pop band. They never want to spend entire decades styling their lustrous, waist-length hair while waiting for that All Important call from Ken.
No, they just want to appear on Maury, looking slutty and saying stuff like, “You are an ungrateful, disrespectful slut, Mama.” Then they tell the world that they’re saving their allowance to become men and IT’S ALL THEIR MOTHER’S FAULT.
And then there’s Ken. Whoa. What has happened to the blond and buff surfer-dude-slash-tycoon, oh he of the Turtle Wax hair, chiseled chin, and safe-sex crotch?
(Barbie: “Mom, can I go out tonight? It’s that dreamy Ken calling…”
Mom: “You betcha! Stay out all night and—snicker, snicker—don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”)
Today, Ken comes home to the “dream house” after a tough twenty minutes of job-hunting, sinks into his plaid Herculon recliner (somebody find that Febreze), and kills a twelve-pack while watching a Knight Rider marathon on TNT. Forty-year-old Ken looks like those losers you see hanging around the bar at the interstate Holiday Inn on drink-free-til-you-pee night. You just know that pink convertible is up on blocks in the side yard.
Mattel blew it. They had the chance to make it up to those of us who grew up waiting to develop ta-ta’s big enough to block out the sun.
They could’ve told the truth about what Barbie would really go through at forty. Make her talking Barbie, though, so she can hear herself say dumb stuff like, “Oh, I can’t drink anything with caffeine in it after noon or I’ll be up all night!”
Or how about they make a Barbie at forty that gets that one little annoying stray hair that just keeps coming back on her chin every couple of weeks or so for no apparent reason. Talk about your Totally Hair Barbie.
And at forty, why couldn’t Mattel make Barbie suddenly start shrieking phrases in public places like “WHERE’S MY PURSE?” only to find it on her lap. Right alongside her ta-ta’s.
To her credit, Barbie has been one heck of a role model for womankind. She’s been a doctor, skydiver, race car driver, mother of triplets, professional lambada dancer, Twirling Ballerina, everything but a double-naught spy.
The problem is she’s done it all with what the experts have deduced through mathematical calculations would be a physique measuring six feet tall and weighing 110 pounds. Y’all put your hands together and show some love for Bulimic Barbie!
Of course she’s just a doll and such measurements are just part of the fantasy. Remember, with dolls, all things are possible. Including having triplets with Ken.