Barbie doll turns the big 5-0

Barbie, the iconic fashion doll with the top-heavy figure and high-heel arches, turns 50 tomorrow, with no need for Botox and no threat of hot flashes.

Mattel has kicked off global events to celebrate the middle-age status of the much-beloved and often controversial 11½-inch doll that has held the imagination of generations since 1959.

The milestone has baby boomers revisiting their childhood and re-examining the influence Barbie Millicent Roberts had on their youth.

"I never wanted to be Barbie, nor did I ever want to look like her, but she was just a doll that could be anything and do anything that my imagination created," said Richmond resident Suzanne Keesler, who remembers saving her money and begging her parents to take her to buy the newest Barbie gear.

With fashion shows, updated dolls and a media blitz, Mattel is hoping to keep Barbie relevant at a time when her most ardent fans tend to hold AARP cards rather than iPods.

"We believe Barbie really targets girls who are 3 to 93," said Stephanie Cota, senior vice president for Barbie marketing at Mattel. "She's always been a perfect reflection of cultural relevance, fashion and aspirations."

Like many women, Keesler has held on to all of her Barbie possessions, even those in tatters. Some display their carefully preserved treasures and some still collect them.

Less-sentimental baby boomers scour attics in search of their Barbies' signature cases -- wondering if the contents could generate a little mad money in a distressed economy.

"Barbie is an incredibly popular eBay figure," said Karen Bard, the online auction site's pop-culture expert. There were more than 217,000 Barbie transactions on eBay in the past 90 days, with an average sale price of $24.

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Few could have anticipated Barbie's longevity in the beginning except her creator, Ruth Handler, who founded Mattel in 1944 with husband, Elliot, and Harold "Matt" Matson.

Handler was bucking a post-World War II trend of paper dolls and lifelike baby dolls that promoted the nurturing side of little girls. Handler's inspiration for Barbie, who was named after her daughter Barbara, was a hard-plastic German doll named Lilli that originally was marketed as an adult toy.

Handler's adult fashion doll bombed at her first American International Toy Fair in New York in 1959. Toy histories record that Barbie's va-va-va-voom figure and made-up face got mixed reviews.

Leslie Roman-Williams of Richmond, a member of the first generation of Barbie owners, remembers overhearing her parents discussing Barbie's dubious charms in a "what-is-this-world-coming-to" manner.

"Nevertheless, they forked over the three bucks for her at the only dime store in our upstate New York town that carried Barbies and from then on I was hooked . . . at least until age 12," Roman-Williams wrote in an e-mail.

By 1961, the glamorous doll was so popular that she acquired a boyfriend, Ken. Barbie also got sidekicks -- a best friend, Midge, in 1963 and a little sister, Skipper, in 1964. Prized accessories included a Barbie dream house and convertible, and copious amounts of other merchandise ranging from lunchboxes to a prom board game.

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Along the road to happy child's play came women's liberation and the civil rights movement. The doll continued to thrive, but issues were raised.

Cota points out that Barbie might be the ultimate liberated woman -- 108 careers in 50 years, never married, childless and possessor of a "Sex and the City" wardrobe.

"She's been an astronaut, she's run for president, we've made her in a CEO suit -- she's always been in touch with what's going on," Cota said.

Although career-woman Barbie was a departure from 1950's "little Mommy" stereotypes, she brought a new set of baggage.

"Barbie as a cultural icon has always been very complex," said Charol Shakeshaft, a gender-equity specialist and chairwoman of Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Educational Leadership.

The body-image question and its effect on young girls continues to persist.

The early Barbie's measurements truly are unattainable. Experts estimate that if she were a real-life woman, she would measure 38-18-34, be 6 feet tall, weigh 100 pounds. and wear a size 4.

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"They're all pretty much white, all have Caucasian features and Caucasian hair -- that's my first objection," Shakeshaft said. "My second objection is that in a world where girls are bulimic and anorexic and a lot of our feminine image and self-esteem have to do with what we look like, I hate to be a supporter of Barbie as an ideal."

In 1989, a Barbie Liberation Organization was formed by a group of activists who objected to Barbie's unrealistic figure and her way of turning play into "superficial consumerism."

But Mattel and other experts say it's a mistake to presume that little girls view Barbie the way their parents do. "To put it simply, kids constantly manipulate playthings as they uniquely see fit," wrote Steven C. Dubin in a compilation of essays titled "The Barbie Chronicles: A Living Doll Turns Forty."

Much ado about nothing, said Roman-Williams of Richmond. "Was I affected with any later Barbie-driven feminist or body issues?" she wrote. "Nah. We played with Barbies without really projecting our futures."

However, through much of Barbie's history, African-American girls played with white Barbies. "Barbie, who personified the ideal, had a small waist, big bust, small nose, long hair, straight fine hair," Shakeshaft said. "That was not good for girls of color. If that's the ideal image, then they're left out."

When Sheniqua Watson of Richmond was growing up, "the black Barbies and the Hispanic Barbies were basically the white Barbies' mold but with darker skin," she recalled. "Technically, there was not a black or Hispanic Barbie until 1980." Mattel introduced Christie as Barbie's African-American friend in 1968.

Mattel has made strides with ethnic dolls in recent years, Watson said. In particular, African-American designer Byron Lars created collector Barbies for Mattel that had more realistic African-American features.

Cota said Mattel is launching a "So In Style" (SIS) line in the fall that will begin with an African-American doll named Grace and her little sisters.

The new line and the birthday campaign are designed to make Barbie more relevant at a time when sales among young girls have dropped. In addition to competition from video games and high-tech gadgets, Barbie recently faced a threat from the popular Bratz dolls -- sort of the anti-Barbies. The edgier Bratz were squashed last year when a court ruled that MGA Entertainment can no longer manufacture, sell, advertise or license any Bratz merchandise, and awarded the line's copyright to Mattel.

Collectors are big purchasers of Barbies now. To collectors and her corporate managers, she's as hot as ever. "She's still the No. 1 fashion doll in the world," Cota said.

Shakeshaft, who didn't have a Barbie but whose daughter did, said Barbie speaks to women at many different levels. "And," she added, "Barbie has a great life."

Contact Julie Young at (804) 649-6732 or .