Barbie: THE LITTLEST HARLOT

[mzmolly]

"In 1994, an unofficial biography revealed that Barbie was modeled on a German cartoon character, an ambitious hooker named Lilli."

The original Lilli:

http://www.barbies.de/BILD-LILLI/bild-lilli.html



"Marketed as a harmless plaything for 35 years, the all-American prom queen turns out to have been a foreign whore on the run. Somehow, the kind of girl your brother couldn't take home to Mom became a role model for million of young girls. How did this unthinkable change occur? Picture a little girl on Long Island (or in Westchester) openly playing with a facsimile of the New York call girl her suburban father secretly visits during his lunch hours. If I am startled, shouldn't middle America be horrified? More amazing is the thought that this whorish facsimile could be a gift from her parents. But that is exactly what has happened -- and what continues to happen -- in homes all over North America. Barbie has become one of the family, and nothing can stem this tide. Even the most committed feminists have been known to buy Barbie dolls for their daughters, as have fundamentalist Christians. She is everywhere, even in the enemy's nursery."

...

"Recently, I had a tense discussion about Barbie with a NOW (National Organization for Women) member who supports the prostitutes' rights movement. When I poked fun at feminist Barbiephobia, she began to bristle. To oppose Barbie was de rigueur -- until I told her about Barbie's status as a former prostitute. I could hear her ideological wheels spinning, as Barbie's credibility grew. "Really?" she said brightly. When I argued that a hatred of Barbie might suggest prejudice against sex workers, she listened intently. But I felt somewhat guilty about exploiting a friend's political sympathies. For I have to admit that Barbie, in her previous incarnation, could never be anything as mundane as a sex worker, and she would never have joined a political movement or party unless there were wallets to be plundered. Lilli was a scheming floozy, perhaps -- a fickle slut, a child-woman seeking the protection of money, a bitch after your wallet, a shopaholic temptress. Lilli might even have been all these things at once. But she was never one of those faceless, clock-watching laborers on the erotic assembly line. If Lilli glanced at her watch, a man didn't feel like a neglected consumer in an impersonal sex mill. Instead, he felt like a patsy -- her patsy. Lilli was a holdover from a sexier, brasher era -- the era of Josef von Sternberg's "The Blue Angel."

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1997/11/26harlot.html

Food for thought this *commercialized* holiday season. ;)

[lilymidnite]

1. Barbie (as much as I dislike that doll) ...

... is 1000 times better than those Bratz dolls. They make no secret about encouraging young girls to be consumerist sluts.

[mzmolly]

2. Oh I hear ya! Amazing that I now pine for the days of Barbie craze!

;)

[Runcible Spoon]

3. really interesting article!

hmmm I was never a Barbie fan. Her legs didn't bend right to ride the Breyer horses, so Brenda Breyer kicked her out of the mansion. Ken was the resident farrier. Barbie had a comeback later in my life when I discovered at age 13 that her legs melted in satisfying ways and she could be charred into interesting voodoo love sculptures to be given as tokens of affection to cute goth boys on whom I had crushes.

[Philostopher]

4. My (male) cousin and I

used to shoot my barbies out of a big slingshot across the yard and into their above-ground pool. We called it 'Barbie Olympics' -- he had a couple of G.I. Joe ... ahem ... erm ... 'action figures' we also shot from the slingshot into the pool. We were not effectively targeted by Mattel, that's what I'm thinkin' ... all my Barbies still in existence have broken knees from missed shots.

[Runcible Spoon]

5. heheheh

I'm glad to see you were an equal opportunity toy torturer! The only "dolls" besides the Breyer horses I ever played with were my She-Ra and He-Man dolls , especially Catra.

[Philostopher]

7. I never bought into the 'fashion model' BS around Barbie.

I had two or three of them, and the camper-van thing, that was about it.

My folks didn't buy us piles and piles of plastic junk, but we had some of the more popular toys, if they weren't too expensive. I guess that was the beauty of Barbie, back in the seventies -- you could buy just the Barbie doll reasonably cheaply, so lots of us had Barbie without every single highly-marketed pile of stuff that hit the store shelves. Everybody I knew had the dolls, but not most of the other stuff.

There was an elderly woman in the town where I grew up who made handmade Barbie clothes and sold them at the drug store, so few of the clothes my dolls had came from Mattel. Thinking back, that was pretty industrious of the old gal, and kind of cool that my Barbie had plenty of clothes that helped somebody else get by without supporting the whole marketing structure around her!

But by the time I was approaching my teen years, I kind of figured out I was never going to be Barbie and started having subversive thoughts about the whole 'Barbie culture' that resulted in her being shot out of a slingshot.

Edit -- I also had a friend whose younger sister took red and black magic markers and drew in nipples and pubic hair on all hers. We both thought it was a scream.

[mzmolly]

6. You'll enjoy this article:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1997/11/26moments.html

"Barbie is no unconscious sexual icon to children. We were totally hip to what a smut-primed rack she had. The first thing any of us would do around a GI Joe would be to peel his camo fatigues off and have Barbie stare at the mound of brown plastic where his command unit was supposed to be. Then we'd strip Barbie real slow, replete with dialogue like, "Take off your tu-tu, Barbie," in a lecherous baritone.

"Oh, no, I can't!" she would twitter, porn-thirstily.

...

Then we'd clack their plastic bodies together for a hot round of inanimate scrogging. This is the only thing you can do with a Barbie, besides dress her, and if you weren't rich, chances are she only had a couple of outfits anyway. We learned a lot from Barbie, in the vein of all that scurrilous man-woman drama as-seen-on-TV. Even at 7, we knew she was a wanton, submissive bimbo. After Joe left, she'd hang around naked for days, with her hair all mussed and one of her toeshoes floating in the dog dish. She had no self-respect."

Oh the memories!

[Mist]

10. LOL!

"She'd hang around naked for days, with her hair all mussed...." Priceless! I think I'm one of the few, along with my sister, who played with Barbie (and Midge) as Mattel intended. But I love others twisted stories about their Barbie days!

[Runcible Spoon]

12. hahaha! good to know there are other twisted, devious minds out there!

eom

[Catt03]

8. (Laughing)

My daughter said the same thing...."she does not fit on the horses".

A collector of Breyers, she used the house for Brenda and Barbie became "parts" somewhere along the way.

Thanks for the memory.

[demnan]

9. Hey what about Ken

Here was a male guy without the anatomy! I grew up with boys and knew what they looked like. Imagine the surprise I had when I went to undress poor Ken.

In fact, Barbie didn't even have pubic hair. I was puzzled.

[mzmolly]

11. "Puzzled" ... and greatly disapointed.

:P