Barbie Controversy

[coloredimage]

I think they're lovely. And none of the other countries are really represented in a "modern" outfit, sans Australia which is such a comparatively "new" country to the others being represented that it doesn't surprise me much.

Personally, I don't collect Barbies at all (the closest things I have to Barbies are my Aurora and Snow White dolls that my mother and roommate bought as presents for me) but I love that Argentine Barbie's dress. It's traditional but modern and such a pretty shade of blue.

[kenaiqueen]

I have Barbie and Ken as Star Trek (classic) characters. And dammit I'm utterly offended by the fact that she doesn't really have the same hairdo as Yeoman Rand!!! And what's with the Ken as Kirk thing? Where's the love handles???? They aren't at all authentic - I should toss them in the fireplace as sacrifices to the God of Perfection.

yes, that last bit was sarcasm.

LOL! I have the Trek Barbie set too, but it's been packed away for years now. Maybe I'll come across it during Spring Cleaning. (not)

There's a reason the phrase 'you can't please everyone' is a cliche. The Barbie DOW line are pretty and that's all they need to be. It's not a matter for the UN to put on their agenda for heavens sake!

[Kd_Bunchanumbers]

And none of the other countries are really represented in a "modern" outfit, sans Australia which is such a comparatively "new" country to the others being represented that it doesn't surprise me much.

Because, you know, Australia didn't have an indigenous culture dating back thousands of years before the settlers came.

Honestly though I can see the point of making a dolls of the world line that didn't heavily rely on stereotypical traits of each country and rather focused on the more modern fashions of each culture. Like how Japan has SO many different modern fashion styles at the moment, yet Mattel would rather focus on kimono and the like. Like I really would love seeing POC dolls from Mattel that didn't seem to just be traditional outfits or tokenistic (like a LOT of Chinese Barbies tend to be in red dresses and have buns) and I don't think it's fair to really dismiss those kind of concerns because it does feed stereotypes whether they intend to or not.

[magkelly]

Bottom line is their customer base. FYI at times Mattel has done cute and more modern versions of Japanese, Chinese, Polynesian, Native American, and African Barbies. You know where they usually ended up? On the clearance shelf. There's a good reason they do this make those generic dolls that people love to criticize. They SELL. The SIS dolls cannot actually be found on the shelves in a lot of places because they don't sell enough to make it worth the stores carrying them. At the end of the season when the beach line dolls get marked down Niki and Steven are still there on the shelves and are usually sent back to Mattel because even on clearance they don't sell. It's the same in the Fashionista lines, and the Basics lines. The only "ethnic" doll that actually do somewhat well are the ones with the Kayla (now Raquelle) and Goddess sculpts.

People bitch, bitch, bitch about there not being enough dolls like this but even when Mattel goes out of their way to make them they don't buy enough of them to make the whole thing worthwhile. I'm kind of sick of it actually, the griping. IMHO, Mattel has no obligation to make yet more dolls that likely won't sell. FYI, those DOTW dolls are already being cleared out and from what I can tell about the only one that is selling is the Irish doll. Even the Chinese doll and the Indian doll, both of whom are actually quite beautiful, dumb costumes aside, are just sitting there. That's usually the case actually any Celtic doll they make sells out and the rest can easily be gotten for a pittance on clearance a few months later.

I don't even know why they bother with that line at all anymore. The whole line is just tired. I used to like that line a lot actually, go out of my way to buy the Celtic dolls in particular, but the last doll I even thought was vaguely worth the $25 price was the Scotland doll from 2009 and I haven't bought another one since. Not new anyway. I never did like the costumes much. I bought those more for their faces and their hair colors than for their costumes. They never even wear their original outfits.

Barbie's collector's stuff has gotten a bit pricey for my wallet lately. $25 is the minimum now for any doll with the collector's label on it and most of the better ones are selling for more than that. Can't even hardly buy a play line doll for less than $13 now and most of the recent Fashionistas and their outfits have been less than captivating. The newer outfits are not well made, the guy dolls are less articulated, and most of the new dolls I think look pretty dorky. They all look like they've been hitting the tanning booths and doing botox fairly regularly. I haven't bought but one Fashionista in the last couple of batches, a Kayla (Raquelle) and even then I ditched her clothes. It's all pretty stale. I'm a diehard Barbie collector and I literally can't find anything worth buying anymore.

If it wasn't for Monster High I think Mattel would be doing far less business than they are now. Their regular play line stuff is just not selling as well. Their collector's dolls aren't really going until they hit clearance. The only thing that is still flying off the shelves is the MH dolls and I hate to say this but even they are not selling like they were. I'm over at Target the other day and there are 3 werewolf sister packs, tons of CAM packs, and several Operettas, Spectras, and 5 doll kits, and tons of all of the new dolls from the various series, and while okay I didn't see Skelita or Jinafire I did see almost all of the rest of the dolls in the series and there are now dolls on that shelf that have been sitting there for months, like the Scary Tale dolls, that would have sold right out a year ago. If I were Mattel I'd be thinking hard about the next MH and not just resting on my laurels.

They're all doing the same thing though. I mean think about it. When did you last see a regular Bratz doll that was really exciting? The Bratzillas? The glow in the dark ones kind of revived my interest a bit but everything since then, yawn. The Disney Oz dolls, except for China Girl I just couldn't get interested enough to go there and all I see when I hit the Disney aisle besides that is same old same old. Smiling princesses. Every now and again you get a new one and she's cute, but after a while you've got them all and you're basically buying the same thing. The little alien dolls are cute, but I have yet to buy one. Ditto those girls with the big eyes and candy colored hair.

I can't wait to see what IDEX brings actually. I'm so utterly bored with it all. I'm just really hoping that something better will be released this year. As much as I love my little dolls I'm really experiencing a major case of ennui these days and it's not just Mattel. It's all of them. Even when it comes to the big kids, Tonner et all, they have me yawning. The whole industry it's just been so disappointing lately. The ideas are flat, the prices are way up. I think this is why I finally went towards BJD's. I'm just not feeling all that taken with anything else lately. I did and do love my China Girl but other than that I can't say I've been been all that into anything else in months.

[DollyKim]

Outside of a couple of specific girls from the SiS line, they have different and prettier faces than the regular Barbies, the only ones I remember buying of recent were 100 poses dolls to upgrade the bodies of my older girls. The Swapping Styles idea could have worked if they had done it a bit differently. It's the Disney and Monsters keeping them afloat and that's as long as they keep coming up with new Monsters or outfits. If they would make a jointed body that would fit all the Teen Skipper clothes I have then I'd take at least a dozen.

I'll pay $25 if they can make their jointed dolls right, good arms and legs get so-so bodies, good body no wrists and so on. If someone from Mattel wants to hire me I have some great ideas based on their existing molds and my experience with my Littles.

[Kd_Bunchanumbers]

RE: SIS dolls and etc

Well, Mattel isn't even selling that line to Australia and various other countries, let alone the fact that a lot of the time, AA versions of dolls rarely get sold outside of the US and UK. Heck, I remember being really surprised seeing one black doll being sold at Target when the Cali Girl line was out. Hell, even MGA packages Sasha separately in her own case when shipping out Bratz doll lines to stores for no real reason asides from the fact she's a black doll, thus reducing her chances of even being ordered by retailers and being made available to the public (because as a retailer, would you rather order a case of three different dolls or a case of just one doll).

As a non white person, it really does concern me about wanting even some form of representation in mainstream doll playlines that isn't based on stereotypes and tokenism is considered bitching and whining.

EDIT: An article describing why POC dolls should really be given more thought and not just because of the bottom dollar. http://www.collectorsweekly.com/article ... ls-matter/

[catshem]

Crawling out from under my rock to add to the choir that Barbie is Barbie. I've loved her since I was a kid and I get a twitch whenever people start making complaints about her. I understand the complaints-they are legitimate ones!- but at the same time Mattel has been trying to make toys that can appeal to kids while also representing them like everyone screams for.
Can't make everyone happy. Basically just vote with your dollar if you don't like it.

[Vetinari]

Eh - wrt these kind of things it's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Try to represent the old cultures - it's racist stereotyping; don't represent it and show modern stuff it's ignoring the rich heritage blah blah.

I've got to admit my main problem with Mattel et al. is the way they deal with currency exchange rates i.e. ignore them.
25USD=25GBP wait what? No, even with 20%VAT that doesn't add up... I often import from the US and pay customs; it's cheaper

[magkelly]

Look I get why you feel that way. I'm not trying to dismiss your concerns about wanting those dolls in the line. For the record I go out of my way to collect them. I love them all. Nikki and Kayla are real favorites of mine actually and I love the African Princess sculpt, Mibili, I think she's called? I want Barbie's friends to be multicultural. I want some of them to have disabilities, to be shaped more like real people. But I'm also realistic too. I do believe that they have tried. That Mattel deserves more credit than it is given for their efforts on that score. What do you do though when nearly every effort you make to make those dolls is met with criticism? When the dolls you do make are the last ones to be bought if indeed they ever do get bought? Do you go on making the gesture? Do you keep on making dolls that sell sluggishly at best? Or do you make more dolls that will sell?

I have at least 10 different shades of brown skin in my boxes and on my shelves. Mattel has literally made every shade of brown from carmel to walnut over the years. I've got kinky hair and straight hair, braids, dreads, afro's and no, I did not make all those hair styles myself though I have done it for a few. I've got girls that look like geisha and girls that look like they could be art students from Tokyo, girls from the Hawaiian islands, Native American girls in traditional costumes and in jeans. People who say that Mattel hasn't made those dolls, well, I all I can say is they're not looking because they sure have indeed.

It's actually a supreme irony that right now their best selling stuff is monster dolls in a gamut of candy colors. I mean think about it. They have to make a brown skinned doll a werewolf to get her to fly off the shelves? They have to make an Asian girl a Dragon? One of the reasons I went so nuts about the Basics was because there were so many sculpts I love represented, so many skin tones. I miss that line something bad. But I never expected them to last for very long. Not with that many different faces and colors in the line. But people who think Mattel isn't trying very hard they really need to look back and SEE what Mattel has done over the years. They don't though. They really don't. They don't see what Mattel has tried to do, consistently over the course of many, many lines, over many years. They don't see what Mattel was doing when no one else was. Or how bold they can be once in a while when someone gets an idea, like the Basics, and runs with it.

Me, I give them credit due. I have to. At least a 1/3 of the Barbies on my shelves are a testament to Mattel's to making culturally diverse dolls. No, they may not get the outfits right, but quite often they will surprise in terms of what they do. Somewhere on the net, I forget where, there is a picture story of a Mattel factory where they have rows of cases with tons of Barbies displayed and a huge nail board of all these different sculpts and skin colors that they have used over the years. The first time I saw that I just blinked because as many dolls as I have like that I had NO idea of how many skin tones and molds there were. There were hundreds and good number of them were not the shades you'd expect given the star of their show is a blue eyed blond.

I would love to see the people who don't think Mattel has been making the effort to take a tour through that factory. To see all those skin tones, all those heads, all the dolls in the display cases representing Barbie in her various incarnations over the years. I bet they'd be stunned to realize just how many dolls there are out there by Mattel that do look like them. I was and I've never felt quite right going after Mattel since.

[DollyKim]

What about an Asian male? The only one I have is a Hot Toys because there just aren't many others. He has a very full and wide face which doesn't help when I want a guy with pronounced cheekbones and more hollow cheeks. Being a cost issue is bull because Power Team Elite has lots of sculpts, better articulation, lots of stuff, good quality, and they're lest costly than Barbie.

Then again it's just a doll and when people make artistic representations of human beings they're going to accentuate the parts they like, big eyes, long legs.