I'm a Barbie Girl in a [Dying] Barbie World

A List of all of My Favorite Childhood Barbies Excluded from Greta Gerwig's Film

PHOTO: “COURTESY” OF “WARNER BROS. PICTURES”

This past weekend I pulled on my pinkest pinstripe romper to drink a pink margarita in a movie theater full of gorgeous, gorgeous girls (in pink) to get eyes on Barbie (2023), Greta Gerwig’s fun, feminist romp — and subversive twist on the “IP film” — which manages the difficult task of earnestly embracing the iconic doll while contending with all her peculiarities and limitations. Part of that process, naturally, involves canonizing Barbie as she is now, since Mattel’s re-brand (they now claim the Barbie line is the “The Most Diverse Doll Line,” which just seems outright true at this point): a range of body shapes, gender identities, and ethnicities.

That’s great news for young girls, but I’m (just barely) a 20th century girl, and we caught the tail end of the original Barbie brand ethos, when there were (technically) non-white Barbies (you’ll find none featured here, as I was only ever problematically given the “stereotypical” Barbie featured in Gerwig’s film), but they all maintained that same classic silhouette. Even better: at the end of the century that birthed her, Barbie had been everywhere and done everything, which meant it was time to get creative…with gimmicks! Every Barbie from that era had a gimmick: ways that lessened the distinction between her unalive status and our own human experience (she walked, talked, stretched, and swam, sure, but she was also LIFE SIZED; she gifted us a car we could DRIVE!). I love(d) a gimmick, so I love(d) Barbie.

When I was a kid, Barbie wasn’t reflective of anyone. She was the fantasy that young girls wanted to be, equipped with the tools of adulthood that were so far out of reach (credit cards, cars, phone lines, etc.). When my childhood friend Bolton and I drove around her backyard in her Barbie Jeep (with her younger sister in a Radio Flyer wagon strapped to the back), we derived joy from the pantomime of being older and having actual power and (relative) autonomy amidst sheltered childhoods and against a backdrop of cultural paranoia about endangered young girls (I wasn’t allowed to bike or walk to elementary school alone, for example, unlike my older brother, “because I’m a girl and it’s just different,” a popular refrain).

Mattel changed the shape of their dolls to evoke more "realistic" body standards as early as 1998 (meaning smaller breasts, wider hips, and flat feet), which they claimed was in response to the demands of their target market: girls aged 3-11. Quoting then-Vice President of Corporate Communications of Mattel, Sean Fitzgerald, an article from the San Francisco Gate notes, “Fitzgerald said Barbie's new physique is not a reaction to feminist claims that the doll, whose measurements would be about 38-18-34 in human inches, presents harmful and distorted images of women. ‘We're very aware of those charges," he said. ‘But those people who have concerns about Barbie are not the ones who are buying them. We listen to our target market.’” By 1998, I was over Barbies, but my lifelong complex adoration of the brand (and the fashions) never truly went away, a tension that Gerwig’s film nails beautifully.

Gerwig’s film is the 2020s high femme GodFAther, and I can’t wait to do a comprehensive deep dive of all of the looks and visual references featured once the film lands on streaming. If I have any real critique, it’s that the dolls featured skew towards a slightly older generation, focusing on the most controversial dolls and the classic archival looks that codified Barbie as the ultimate fashionista. Which is fine, but what about the wildly specific Barbies that helped me fall in love with her?? I’ve compiled my favorites here. The following photos are (sadly) not of my own dolls, which are mostly in a box in my parents’ garage, but images liberally borrowed from eBay and collectors’ sites:

“Barbie Dream Boat,” 1994

My she was yar…

My love for blended cocktails, the open sea, and yacht rock no doubt stems from owning this “Barbie Dream Boat” at a dangerously formative age. According to my parents, a “spoiled” (their words) girl from my class showed up to one of my earliest birthday parties with this toy boat: a giant baby pink Barbie yacht complete with a pop-in “hot tub” and real-working blender (which I mostly put soap and pieces of trash into). According, once again, to my parents, the child’s mother insisted that she liked to pick out “the biggest gifts in the store,” meaning this unnamed child chose this 36” x 16.5” x 16” monstrosity to honor me. My parents were horrified; I was delighted. What selfless generosity in one so young!

The Barbie yacht moored in our backyard for years afterwards, no doubt developing dry-rot before being sent to that great boat graveyard in the sky. I’ve never received a gift as opulent since. I miss her every single day.

“Cool Shoppin’ Barbie,” 1997

This Barbie has accrued interest on her purchases!

Long before I was gifted the ability to incur debt for real, I pretended to spend outside my means with “Cool Shoppin’ Barbie,” one of my favorites, who came with a working cash register and—more importantly—a teeny tiny MasterCard. Who runs the collection agencies in Barbie Dreamland? What’s Barbie’s APR? You know that credit score is under 600.