#controversial barbies

[barbielore]

Hello Barbie and the Hello Dreamhouse were releases by Mattel to try to keep up with modern technology. In the age of Siri and Alexa, the Hello Barbie and Hello Dreamhouse were voice-activated Barbie toys.

However, much like Video Girl Barbie before her, when Hello Barbie hit the market, she raised a lot of concerns about privacy.

Hello Barbie essentially used the same mechanics as any other voice activated digital assistant - with the help of a WiFi connection, you could talk to Barbie and she could talk back. However a number of security concerns were raised about this, ranging from ToyTalk's privacy policy outright saying it keeps the data and shares this with third parties, to the possibility that a hacker could at best make Barbie say something rude or at worst, use this data to obtain personal information about other people's children.

The company offered a bounty to anyone who could help them identify potential weaknesses in the Barbie... but at the end of the day, perhaps the Barbie was more trouble than she was worth. Kids don't need a Barbie doll with an internet connection. (Does that make me sound like a curmudgeon?)

The Hello Dreamhouse didn't talk back (obviously, it's a house) but was theoretically supposed to respond to voice commands to emulate a smart home. The doors could open by voice command, the chandelier disco ball could spin and light up in different colours, and so on.

However after the privacy concerns and a lot of bugs and glitches, the Dreamhouse was discontinued along with Hello Barbie.

You know what stands out to me about that, though? Once they were discontinued, existing Hello Barbies and Hello Dreamhouses no longer worked, as the app was no longer supported.

Meaning anyone who had bought this and was using it no longer had access to the product they paid for.

[iodoesdolls]

I wanted a pregnant midge so bad when I was a kid, and didn’t know Walmart had a special non-pregnant version, so I spent most of a decade wondering why my doll didn’t work.

I can’t afford her now, so in the meantime this pregnant Steffi Love will fill the need.

[barbielore]

A minor mystery of the Barbie line - was there in fact a brief line of Kardashian Barbies that were pulled from shelves?

Someone posted these photos on Reddit, and this photo can be found on Twitter, Reddit and a couple of doll blogs, but searching provides nothing official from Mattel. One website claims to have formerly had them in stock, but the item number garners no hits anywhere else - just their own website.

A little digging gets to a Hollywood Reporter article from 2012 that announces that the doll line is coming later that year. This is then the jumping off point to a few others - it seems clear than in early January 2012, people thought these dolls were coming, but that Mattel's official answer at the time was "we do not comment on product rumours".

Naturally, this sparked a bit of a minor to-do. The Boycott the Kardashians group (as reported in Christian Post, who I am sure have no bias here...) called for a petition to boycott Mattel.

As far as I can tell, though, the story peters out there. The next update I can find at all in the tale is a Daily Mail article from 2019 (which, besides any other feelings you may have about the Daily Mail, misspells "Barbie" in the first line) that cites a tweet from Kim in which she confirms there was going to be a Barbie of her but the deal fell through.

So that's the story, as far as I can tell. I hope you all had as much fun reading it as I did researching it.

[barbielore]

In 2018, Mattel made a Frida Kahlo Barbie as a part of the Inspiring Women series.

Frida Kahlo is, of course, an artist deserving of respect and accolades. However, perhaps Barbie was not the place for that - her niece (Mara de Anda Romeo, speaking as a representative of Kahlo's estate) claimed that Mattel did not have the rights to use her likeness, and that if they were going to do so, needed to make changes to the design of the doll.

For example, Kahlo was renowned for her very distinct eyebrows, and while the Barbie does have more prominent eyebrows than typical Barbies, this does not accurately represent Kahlo's appearance. Additionally, the costume the Barbie is presented in does not accurately represent the Tehuana-style dresses Kahlo wore. Kahlo was also a woman who lived with physical disabilities, and the Barbie is depicted as able-bodied.

All of this is not even addressing the fact that Kahlo, as a lifelong communist, might not want to be represented by a capitalist icon like Barbie.

Mattel argued that they had the rights for the doll under a contractual agreement with the Frida Kahlo Corporation.

A Mexican court determined that the Frida Kahlo Corporation did not have permission to use or grant others to use the likeness of Frida Kahlo without permission from the owners of the rights.

As a result, the doll can no longer be sold in Mexico, however as of now is still available in the United States through websites like Amazon.

[barbielore]

Barbie has had tie-ins for the Olympic Games before, including both the Summer and Winter games as well as the Paralympics.

(Finding that post to link back to made me realise that I said I was going to do a post about past Winter games dolls, but I haven't done so.)

As of time of writing this post, there have not been any announced tie-in dolls for the 2024 Paris games, but I think it's highly likely that there will be.

I have recently discovered that there was a bit of controversy over the dolls for the Tokyo games in 2020/2021, and I feel it appropriate to draw attention to it.

This was during a time when Mattel were really pushing diverse line-ups in the Barbie brand. In fact, there was a press release (links to it now dead but it was quoted in some other articles) in which they discussed that the collection was designed to “highlight inclusivity and innovation”.

However, some people subsequently questioned this, as the line does not contain any Barbies of Asian appearance - despite the Games being held in Japan!

Mattel's official statement was that the Skateboarder Barbie was intended to be read as an Asian athlete however that they "fell short".

I am not going to question whether this doll is or is not intended to depict an Asian athlete - however this was a disappointing effort given the promise of inclusivity.

Some Asian athletes have been depicted as Barbies - for example volleyballer Hui Ruoqi has a She-roes depiction.

And snowboarder Chloe Kim has a highly sought after Barbie depiction too.

However going forward Mattel really could do better to ensure that, if they are going to market a brand as being diverse and inclusive, that they actually do follow through on that promise.

[barbielore]

Over the years, Barbie has been many things - and in the mid-2000s, SeaWorld Trainer joined the list.

There were a few different pieces in this line - all showing Barbie as a SeaWorld Trainer: one with a dolphin and an orca, one with dolphin, orca and seal, and one taking her younger sister to see the penguins. The orca is identified on Amazon as Shamu - but of course, as you may or may not know, SeaWorld kept using the "Shamu" name well after the death of the original Shamu.

This series was extremely controversial, to the point where there was a change.org petition calling for the set to be discontinued.

I could enumerate the reasons why this is controversial, starting with the poor treatment of animals by SeaWorld and the number of deaths and serious injuries associated with orcas at SeaWorld, but the 2013 documentary Blackfish answers a lot of that for me.

Mattel did pull the SeaWorld trainer Barbie following this backlash, but naturally you can still get them on the secondary market.

[iodoesdolls]

My growing up skippers! I know there’s a lot of controversy, but as a girl growing up I always really loved them. I got the one in rougher shape on eBay when I was 14; I spent months waiting for one in my price range. The girl with the ribbon is from eBay a couple months ago; I got her because she was an amazing deal, and I thought maybe I could get rid of my older, worse off one, but it turns out I’m too attached. So now there’s two!

Ribbon girl is in the younger stage; short hair is older.