Barbie looks good for 50

I loved Barbie. I dressed her in all of her fabulous outfits and dreamed of owning the gargantuan Barbie dream house and her pink Corvette convertible. But it wasn't all glitz and glamor with me, my Barbie flipped burgers and made milkshakes at McDonald's. She had secret rendezvous with Ken and was a role model for younger sister Skipper. And she was kind and humane to my entire stable of My Little Ponies.

Barbie, or Barbara Millicent Roberts as she is officially named, is an icon of American culture and has been a part of most girls' young lives for 50 years. Making her debut in March of 1959, she's seen a lot of changes. In 1971, her eyes were changed to look forward rather than demurely to the side. In 2000, Barbie gave Gore a run for his money when she ran for president (and even spawned voting booths in Toys R' Us stores for children to vote for their favorite candidate!) In 2004, Mattel announced that there was trouble in paradise and that Barbie and Ken had gone their separate ways, but were lovingly reunited in 2006. Released this year, Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie comes with a set of more than 40 tiny tattoo stickers that can be placed on her body and a faux tattoo gun with wash-off tats.

In honor of her 50th anniversary, Mattel has released a doll similar to the original. The doll features a new face with a more natural look, including a thinner jaw line, more almond-shaped eyes, fuller lips and a softer makeup palette, with shimmery pink lip shades and neutral eye colors. The new doll sports a two-piece black-and-white bikini trimmed with Barbie’s signature color pink, pink hoop earrings, a ponytail and, given how trendy she always is, a cell phone.



Look at the difference between the two. She may be an unrealistic depiction of an American woman, but you have to admit that she certainly does a good job of representing the changes in beauty women have gone through in the past 50 years. She's taller, she tanner, she's leaner, she's not as all-American.

We've all heard the Barbie backlash. Her body is so distorted that she would have to walk on all fours and wouldn't have enough body fat to menstruate if she were alive. Her pink scale reads 110 pounds, and since she's manufactured on a 1/16 scale, she would be 5'9" in real life and therefore 35% underweight. She's a horrible choice of toy for a young girl coming of age and coming to terms with her body. While I agree with all of this wholeheartedly, more than some of you know, I also think that, like Barbie's 44D chest, it's been blown way out of proportion. What little girl wants a toy that looks like a real woman with wrinkles and love handles and cellulite? I mean really - why do we go see movies? Not because we always want to see someone who looks just like us who's stressed out about mortgage payments, we want to see a beautiful woman find the love of her life or a big muscly man save the world. Movies are fantasy worlds for adults just as toys are fantasy worlds for children. What boy wants to play with a matchbox car that's a 1997 Saturn? So he can imagine himself at 40 years old with a dead end job and a gym membership he doesn't use? No, he wants a red Ferrari! So he can imagine himself as a super cool guy with lots of money and friends and everything he could ever want.

So perhaps we should give Barbie a break and see her for what she is - a total babe with a million dollar home and a pink corvette.