October 13, 2009

Christian Louboutin reportedly "found Barbie's ankles too fat."

"Never mind that Louboutin's people now insist it's not the ankles, but the arches, that the designer is making Mattel change on his new stick-legged Barbie. This could be the biggest scandal for the toymaker since Pregnant Midge."

Pregnant Midge? I had to look that up. Back in 2002:
The pregnant version of Midge, which pops out a curled-up baby when her belly is opened — has been pulled from Wal-Mart shelves across the country following complaints from customers, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.

"It was just that customers had a concern about having a pregnant doll," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Illick said.

She said the entire "Happy Family" set, which includes pregnant Midge, husband Alan and 3-year-old son Ryan, had been pulled from shelves of the world's largest retailer, which has about 2,800 stores and 500 warehouse club stores....

The pregnant Midge, who wears a tiny white wedding ring, has a detachable magnetic stomach that allows easy "delivery" of the baby, and comes with tiny crib, cradle, changing table, baby toys and even a tiny baby monitor. Alan and Ryan are sold separately. The baby also can get a first checkup from "Dr. Barbie," also sold separately.
How very much more shocking that the perception of nonexistent cankles!

Good lord, they beat you over the head with her marriedness. I should think that if you're concerned about girls having babies too young, Pregnant Midge sends a much better message than a plain old-fashioned baby doll. Holding a baby doll, your little girl is acting like an unwed mother. But new things upset us in a way that old things do not.

9 comments:

KCFleming said...

"Holding a baby doll, your little girl is acting like an unwed mother. "

Nope, no more than a little boy crashing his toy cars is acting like a drunk driver.

Most often it's merely modelling what they see in front of them every day. So if Mom is unwed, so is the little girl.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You know who has a tiny vagina? Barbie. Not Klaus Barbie, the infamous Nazi.

Jesus is Magic (2005).

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Andrew Sullivan called Midge’s maternity a fraud.

wv - cisesse - a cesarean doll

miller said...

Lem - darned funny!

Unknown said...

Pogo said...

"Holding a baby doll, your little girl is acting like an unwed mother. "

Nope, no more than a little boy crashing his toy cars is acting like a drunk driver.

Most often it's merely modelling what they see in front of them every day. So if Mom is unwed, so is the little girl.


Very true. People need to be aware of the messages they're sending to not only their own kids, but kids around them (this from an uncle).

Freeman Hunt said...

I don't understand why Midge was pulled.

The article doesn't show Barbie's ankles. Wouldn't that be an important picture to go with the article? How am I supposed to judge whether or not redesigning the ankles is a bad move? I'm just supposed to assume that the ankles were in perfect proportion or that it would be wrong to put them in perfect proportion?

Photog fail.

Freeman Hunt said...

I also don't believe for one minute that eating disorders are some kind of childhood epidemic.

I would believe feigning eating disorders to be in fashion though.

All those girls and ladies magazines push the ideal of emoting victimhood.

Anonymous said...

Freedman, I think that you are right on, there. When I think back to High School, I knew a lot of kids who were self-dubbed freaks and misfits (today you'd call them goth or emo, I guess), and the girls loved to go on and on about their "food issues" and "body issues," when they were perfectly healthy.

Relatedly, the girl who most comes to mind when I say that came from a very broken home, where virtually no regular meals took place- the kids just grabbed and ate in front of the TV whenever they felt the urge. When she visited my house, where home-cooked, dining room table dinners were required, she ate completely normally.

Kathy said...

I bought the pregnant Midge doll (and family) on ebay years ago when I had one child and another on the way (or two and number three on the way--who can remember??? lol). I thought it was a perfect way to let my dd play with th idea of pregnancy. Of course, I was jealous of Midge's perfectly flat post-pregnancy belly and extremely easy deliveries!