Hi Barbie!

Well, I jumped on the bandwagon, so to speak. I went to see the movie Barbie, which is all the rage this summer.  If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know that “Hi Barbie” is a catch phrase, uttered hundreds of times during the film. Of course, Barbie was part of the pop culture "Barbenheimer," referencing the two big U.S. movie releases of the summer. We saw the movie Oppenheimer about week ago. All of that is completely out of character for us--two movies in back-to-back weeks. Our normal track record is one movie theater event every 10 or 12 months or so. But, I went to see Oppenheimer with hubby Rob, and then later went to see Barbie with one of my daughters. So, I guess I’m the only one who was waving a frequent movie patron card.

Oppenheimer was a very good, very intense movie. I appreciated the complex story and the solemn, world-altering implications of all the decisions that were made as the plot moved along. However….....I felt like the plot moved along extremely slowly. I felt bogged down during much of the movie. And, while I really do like Cillian Murphy, who plays the title character, I spent roughly the first hour of the movie wondering when the heck does Matt Damon come into the story?? Love me some Matt Damon. I thought the story needed a little bit of his Jason-Bourne-slightly-off-guard-but-genuinely-dedicated-to-the-mission charm. I was right. When his character finally appeared, I thought the story moved along at a better pace.  And, let me tell yall, if a movie is going to be 3 hours long, just make sure you KNOW that it's a long one before you get into it. Otherwise, you're gonna spend the last hour wondering when is this thing gonna wrap up?? Or, so I've heard. Anyhoo, Oppenheimer was a good movie, as you might already know. But, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. In case you haven't noticed, I've never claimed to be the deepest of thinkers.

Barbie was a fun, rather silly movie. My daughter and I wore pink to celebrate the occasion. The fantasy story carried on with a beginning, a conflict, resolution of the conflict, growth of characters, and a happy ending. Standard formula stuff. We had a good time at the movie, but I didn’t walk away with any profound thoughts about it. You might like it if you enjoy being entertained for the sake of entertainment.

But, all the Barbie hype got me thinking about my personal experiences with Barbie.

The Barbie doll was introduced in 1959. When I was a child, my sister and I played with fashion dolls. We did not have (could not afford?) name brand Barbies. Maybe we had one Barbie. Instead of Barbie, our toy fashion doll was Tammy. She was the knock-off brand, created by Ideal Toy Company in 1962. Tammy was marketed as a wholesome doll, with a body more proportioned as a teenager. Versus the va-va-va-voom Barbie doll. Maybe that’s why we had Tammies. More wholesome.  Tammy had a little sister name Pepper and a brother named Ted.

According to dollsmagazine.com, the race for the fashion doll market was at its peak in the early 1960s. As Barbie sales increased and as part of their strategy to expand the market, Mattel introduced tamed-down Barbies that were more in line with the shape and size of a young teenager girl, a cheerleader. Meanwhile, Ideal Toy decided to age their dumpy wholesome Tammy dolls to slim them down and make them more mature. So, both toy companies altered their designs to make the dolls more like dolls that the other company was producing. Ideal Toy was the loser in that game, and they discontinued Tammy dolls in 1966.

Back in the day, girls didn’t buy lots of Barbie (or Tammy) dolls. We had a few dolls, but we spent money buying packages of doll clothes, to update our fashions. Then, much of our time was spent dressing and accessorizing our handful of dolls.  That’s in contrast with Barbies of today, where you buy a new Veterinarian Barbie if you want to play Vet, or a new Pilot Barbie if you want to fly planes. A separate doll for each occasion. As far as I know, they no longer sell packages of clothes to ‘dress’ the Barbie dolls. In olden times, my grandmother, who had been a seamstress, bought Simplicity, Vogue, Butterick, or McCalls fashion doll sewing patterns which fit Barbie and other dolls. My grandmother sewed, crocheted, and knitted tons of clothes for our dolls. We had a box full of tiny pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, jackets, pjs, hats, scarfs, and coats. All lovingly created by our grandmother. Of course, as youngins we didn’t appreciate the effort she put into crafting the clothes.  But, we did enjoy playing with all the pieces.

My childhood with Barbie and/or Tammy was vastly different from my daughters’ experiences.  My three daughters were born between 1994 and 2001. They collected a variety of Barbie dolls along the way. But, I’m not sure I ever saw them play with the dolls in a traditional way. They would gather the dolls and dress them to get ready for “the game.’  Since I never participated in their game, I might be mistaken about some of the rules.  Be that as it may, I do have a general sense of how the game was played.

First, my girls would divide the dolls into teams, matching the ‘personalities’ of the characters to get the best mix.  Then, they would take their pile of dolls to the bottom of the basement stairs. On her turn, one of the girls, would take a Barbie from her team and fling her as far as she could up the stairs. Points were scored depending upon how far the Barbie went up the stairs and how she landed—face down, on her back, leg in the air, touching 2 steps, etc. Each girl took her turn as they rotated through the lot, and more Barbies would be heaved up in the air to land somewhere on the stairs. They tallied points for each team, taking into account whether dolls touched one another, or canceled out the points from another team. Kelly dolls (Barbie’s little sister) were the favorite missiles, because they flew far and stayed compact. Kellys scored more points than Barbies. But, the highest points were always awarded for the one Tommy doll (Ken’s little brother), because there was only one Tommy in the house. There were a lot of special conditions attached to Tommy’s participation, but I don’t know what they were.

Yep, that’s how my girls played with Barbies.  It was certainly creative, but also rambunctious and noisy. One of many games that made me groan and whisper “oh no” when I heard it starting. But, on the other hand, I do embrace expressing oneself in non-traditional ways. So, they were taking a page out of my book when they invented their Barbie game.

Hi Barbie! I could probably get through the rest of my life without giving Barbie one more ounce of consideration. But, the recent movie and the noise surrounding it, did bring all of those memories back. And, it opened the door to discuss a variety of topics: personal preferences (Barbie vs Oppenheimer), marketing hype (Barbenheimer), trendy business decisions (Mattel vs Ideal Toy), economical supply decisions (home-sewn doll clothes), financial business decisions (sell more Barbies instead of selling clothes for the Barbie you already have), and innovative thinking (toss those Barbies for points!).

Sounds like there's a lot going on in Barbie Land. So, maybe there’s more to Barbie than I thought.