I am a Total Hypocrite about Porn Star Barbie

My sister and I were Barbie fanatics growing up. We had such fun playing. In fact, we had so much fun playing together---one of our times of playing nicely---and we played with so much imagination that I remain pro-Barbie to this day. The story was the key to me. Was Barbie dressed the part? If so, then all was good.

I never noticed her proportions. I never noticed whether blonde, blue-eyed Barbie was the Cool Chick. Actually, my favorite Barbie was Hispanic Barbie. I adored her black hair, brown skin, and melting black eyes. (The melting part might have been literal once or twice as Barbie aided me in a science experiment. In fact, Skipper bears a few, sad scars to this day, although she hasn't let it get her down if her still-chipper smile is any indication.) I named her Connie.

Back then, Barbie was a doll who had lots of clothes, accessories, and play toys. She wasn't a political statement as far as we were concerned. Many of our friends weren't even interested in Barbie.

Back then there was very little TV at all, and even less TV designed for kids. We had grown past Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, and had begun our Little House on the Prairie and Nancy Drew stages.

Barbie was often a prairie girl who lived in a Lincoln Log cabin. She tended horses, chickens, grew crops, and occasionally hired Ken to help out with a few things. It never occured to us that Barbie wouldn't own her own farm.

Barbie was also a SuperSpy, one of my childhood ambitions. She sneaked under plastic barbed wire wearing a Wonder Woman outfit and protected us against Nuclear War, which those Russians were always trying to export to our country---or, more importantly from my POV, frequently ended my SRA reading time at school for a duck and cover drill (fat lot of good that would do, although it might have made interesting research fodder for future archeologists).

Other times Barbie was a modern city girl. She decorated homes or was a famous journalist, maybe a teacher. All while wearing wrap-around handkerchief skirts, fashionable wide-brimmed hats, and even gloves sometimes. When evening struck, she rode her bicycle to the disco, wearing black spangly outfits with lacy capes and spiky heeled boots.

Unrealistic as the size of her waist and hips, I know. But fun.

The point is, we dedicated an unbelievable amount of time to fun Barbie play. I swear to this day it is the source for my over-developed imagination.

It won't surprise you to learn, then, that I played Barbie long past an age I am willing to admit to. Okay so I was playing Barbie only today.

I have a good explanation for that.

My mother brought a large, plastic storage tub full of the Barbies, clothes, and furniture she saved from our childhood. I'm to pass it along to my little girls.

Over my cold, dead body.

That tub---representing a small portion of our Barbie paraphenalia (whatever happened to our Barbie camper?---is my Walter Mitty.

It is my Rosetta stone, I realized today, as I opened it and pulled out each familiar object. Looking at these wonderfully preserved toys, I caught a sharp glimpse, a flashback, of who I was thiry years ago and how that helped form who I am today.

I dressed my Connie in the outfits I recalled as my favorites, and was ecstatic to see the Ken Olympic Skier outfit still complete. I marveled that the gold, orange, and brown mushroom print bed was ever beautiful to me, although I still found the yellow pantsuit with half-skirt, bolero jacket and hat attractive. After fingering inflatable furniture, spinning Barbie's bike wheels, and even combing Connie's hair, it occured to me that so much of what I rememebred wasn't a dream, or fiction, the story of someone else, as it so often seems, especially the further from childhood I go. My past is actually my past, my story.

Searching for further anthropological evidence of my childhood, I pulled out my Barbie Caboodle Kit and saw that even as a child, I was methodical, organized, and meticulous. The dolls, outfits, and accessories were arranged and in great condition.

I had suspected all of it, but here it lay before my adult eyes: my childhood, untouched for well over twenty-five years, my memories in hard proof.

What I didn't expect---beyond the neatly paired shoes, carefully sorted clothes (Barbie's here, Ken's here, accessories here)---and didn't remember was the collection of Barbie lingerie.

Perhaps to my puerile eyes and mind it was simply underwear, minus the Electric Company logo.

To my adult eyes, it was, "Oh MY GOODNESS, MOM! What were you thinking!" I gasped and laughed, holding up a hot pink racy teddy meant for Barbie. I dug deeper. Were these satin ladies boxers? "Good GRIEF, is this a French Maid's outfit? Are you KIDDING?!?!" and, "A sheer nightgown and robe set? What the...did you buy me porn star Barbie?"

My mother, sister and I stared, and dug deeper, finding more risque Barbie lingerie. We laughed and laughed. My sister and I had never realized, nor had my mother. Maybe back then we didn't have Victoria's Secret to tell us that all of this was S-E-X-Y. Maybe we were just playing, innocently.

Maybe innocence is the key.

My opposition to those Bratz dolls, lingerie for first graders, padded bikinis for 5 year olds, and all the other sexed up and sassy toys out there for little kids seemed suddenly so...hypocritical.

I re-weighed the evidence.

I considered: do we need to view toys not from an adult perspective, but rather from a child's perspective?

How often do my kids use toys in ways other than how intended?

Frequently. I thought ruefully of the boxes (that had housed toys) Persistence became attached to during Christmas.

This is actually my rationale for allowing Barbie in the house.

So why not, then, go for the Bratz and Bratz cousins?

Is it simply because Barbie feels safer to me, because she is so familiar, such a part of my childhood?

Maybe so.

However, I have decided that both points of view are necessary: I have to view toys both from an adult and child's perspective.

So the Bratz and toys of that ilk are still Banned in this house.

As for Barbie, I think she'll remain housed in a tub for most of the time. I'd hate her to take over my daughters' play time. They have so many other, diverse interests that I want to encourage. Patience did get that bug vacuum and science kit for Christmas. Better not let that sit idle. She left it out to play with Barbie, and now we have an Unidentified Bug loose in the house.

copyright 2006 by Julie Pippert

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