The Queen of Pink

According to sources, Barbie's birthday is today.  If she were a real little person she'd be sixty-five.

Of course this bow doesn't show my mother's vintage Barbie, the one who I always picture when I think of good ol' Barbie, but as I noted last summer no Barbie bows show the vintage dolls.  Kinda a shame, but then again most vintage doll collectors don't make a habit of wearing hair bows.  The Etsy shop, YellowBellesCreation, appears to be defunct.

Many years ago I posted a comparison on my doll blog, showing Mama's Barbie with one available during the current day.  This year I decided to do it again, because Barbie has come a long way since 1959.

In 1959 Barbie came in one skin tone, one eye color, and two hair colors.  Her heels were high, her boobies were big, and she...didn't look much like the teenage fashion model she was supposed to be.  She didn't get a black relative (yes, relative) until 1967 when her cousin Francie was rendered in an Afro-American tone, and she didn't get her first black friend until 1969 when good ol' Christie appeared on the scene (I love Christie!).  For comparison, Barbie's first celebrity friend, the one and only Twiggy, made her debut in 1967, the same year that Black Francie appeared.  Yep, Barbie had a family member of color before she had a friend of color, but poor ol' Francie was merely a black doll who utilized the white molds.  Oh, she's a cute doll, but...yeah.  Black Francie is VERY hard to find now, by the way.  The one I'm showing is a reproduction.

Christie and Julia arrived in 1969, and Mattel actually put out the effort to make them look special.  I freaking love these two.  Casual Barbie fans may remember Christie (of whom I couldn't find a stock photo), and Julia was Barbie's second celebrity friend.  She was based on Diahann Carroll and the character she played on the sitcom...well, the sitcom Julia.  Pretty Julia also got her own reproduction.
Barbie didn't become black herself until 1980, and oh Lordy, do I love that particular doll!  She's got my favorite head mold (Steffie), and she's got a nicely maintained little Afro, and I just love her. 
Black Barbie was a hair controversial when she hit store shelves, but she was groundbreaking enuff to get her own reproduction.  Sadly her counterpart, the equally beautiful Hispanic Barbie, doesn't get a lot of love.  What a shame; the Latin community loves Barbie too!  Here's the Latina; she too has the Steffie face.
By the nineties Barbie's companions Christie, Kira, and Teresa provided some nice racial representation, but now Barbie does all the representing herself.  I call the blonde doll in the picture above "Reenie" after a book character, but she's Barbie just like all the other Fashionistas.  Reenie is yet another groundbreaking doll, in that she has Down syndrome.
Lottie beat Barbie to the punch here; her handling company released a character with Down syndrome several years ago.  I need Rosie Boo, LOL, and Sinead too, for that matter.  It's been forever since I bought a Lottie doll.  But as fond as I am of Lottie I don't see her being toted around by too many little girls.  I mean, she's still being made, but where do they sell Lottie???  Toys R Us isn't open anymore, so it can't be there.  But yeah, Reenie needs a special-needs friend whom she can relate to.  My other dolls have been incredibly kind (duh, I MAKE 'em be kind, LOL), but she needs a friend that's like her.  For the record, the aforementioned Sinead is a little person, and Barbie has NEVER been a little person.  That would be awesome!

I think that my favorite thing about Barbie is that she can be anything the owner wants her to be.  She can be a young mother with a couple'a kids, or a couch potato like me.  One can project onto her any lineage, any sexual orientation (I've got a couple that I pretend are gay, for example), any religion, any age, anything.  Also important (to me, at least), is that one can get a doll with a certain hair color or skin tone and be wildly happy.  I like redheads, for example, and every new wave of Fashionistas includes at least one redhead.  When I was young redheads weren't always easy to find.

Happy birthday, Barbie!  I'm hoping for sixty-five more...jeez, I'll be old then if I'm alive then!

Love,
RagingMoon1987

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