It kind of really confuses me when Barbie commercials have little girls dressing them up and brushing their hair Like no Barbie is not about fashion. Barbie is about collecting as many dolls as you can get your grubby 7 year old hands on and dominating the living room with your expansive empire of plastic women. Barbie is about creating intricate social structures and spicy inter-family conflicts between town house residents. Barbie is about formulating complex back stories for tortured Ken dolls with emotional scars. It’s about creating near-sadistic dramatic plot twists that split up marriages and cause that one Barbie you really dislike to be ceremoniously tossed down the stairs in order to be offed by the jealous ex-wife of Ken #4.
Yes, but how do you make it into a marketable commercial that won’t freak parents and caregivers out?
I’ve always had the impression that advertisers don’t really understand how girls play with their toys.
When I played with Barbies I had this thing called “The Dead Pit” which was a purple bratz laundry hamper. So whenever a Barbie got killed off she would go in there. And what I would do was I would carry her to the dead pit while singing the dead pit song. The dead pit song was just saying “The dead pit” over and over again in different tones. Anyway, once I finally reached the pit I would announce “(name) has died.” And drop her in. I would wait a few moments. Then, I would violently shake the hamper while shrieking, pretending to be the tortured souls of dead barbies from the underworld. I thought it was hilarious.
