Owww! My brain hurts just seeing that!!

And there are people who actually object that this stuff doesn't matter - no, seeing this one box isn't going to change your perception of the world, but a childhood filled with this stuff certainly shapes an individual's view of life!

Were these the same dolls that have a "companion" horse, but are unable to actually seat it? (as in, the dolls aren't positionable such that they can straddle the horse?)

ugh, pink vomit anywhere.

I honestly can't remember seeing that many pink crap as a child in the 80s. Does anyone else?

*bangs head on keyboard* hb'/llogf;dfeio

Really, I don't have more to say.

Dear Mattel:

Please go back to the We Girls Can Do Anything line of the 80s. You seem to have forgotten somewhere along the way that Barbie was an astronaut decades before Sally Ride. Stop running this brand into the ground and then wondering why your demographic has dropped from 8 year olds to 3 year olds.

Love,

A Barbie collector for nearly 20 years who isn't sure I will want to buy modern play line Barbies for my future daughters.

I'm sure someone will still find a way to argue that there's no sexism here, and you're over-interpreting.

I'm not thoroughly familiar with any aspect of the Three Musketeers outside of the book, but inventor seems random. Is there subtext I'm missing?

Reading the Wikipedia page on Barbie and the Three Musketeers (!), it sounds like this movie might be a step up from whatever usual Barbie things there are. Of course, maybe there are lots of positive Barbie movies, I have no idea, having no tweenage daughters or any other reason to look. Apparently the male protagonist in this story is something of an inventor (so that explains one comment), but absolutely the comment on the female dolls' box undermines whatever slightly positive message the movie itself might have.

Since no boy would buy or be given a Ken doll, much less a Barbie, tweenage girls are the intended audience (at least that seems likely). So at a fairly young age girls are being told that adult women are vain, while adult men are interested in difficult, rather intellectual pursuits. I think that is a problem.

These dolls are horrifying, but I have to admit to hating the candy-colored swizzle-stick-"swords" that came with them more than the packaging. Also I seem to recall the back of Ken's package explaining that he doesn't want to govern his kingdom, he just wants to invent things. So girls can save the day, but only from wussy guys who dodge their responsibilities. ;)

I checked out Mattel's site for the Three Musketeers line. There are four female characters. Corinne ("played by" Barbie) is the one who most wants to become a musketeer. The others are a fashionista, a dancer and an archer. I'm guessing that the author's niece received the fashionista doll.

-- Barbie’s thought: “This riding outfit is the cutest!” --
-- Ken’s thought: “I want to be an inventor!” --

..."math is hard," anyone?

she's wearing a riding outfit and she couldn't even be saying something about horses or being good at riding?

Ha! I guessed which box was for who without reading the bubbles. The Ken box is outdoors, where there's adventure and fun, and the Barbie box is indoors, where she's supposed to be occupied with clothes and things of the domestic nature.

I would love to see the bubbles switched. Barbie: "I want to be an inventor!" Ken: "This riding outfit is the cutest!"

Question to the Barbie collectors here: If I had a daughter right now, which currently available positive/feminist Barbies (leaving aside the whole body features, too skinny issues) could I buy in a normal store? (not on ebay from the 1980s) The computer engineer Barbie (laptop and glasses-which-code-geek are pink of course) is not yet on the market, therefore: what else is out there?

Is anyone else certain the design was inspired by "To Wong Foo"?

Barbie1

Barbie2

Barbie's friend 1

Barbie's friend 2

Also: My eyes hurt now.

I would have loved these when I was little. I hated having to make my own weapons for my Barbies. My main Barbie was a genetic engineer. I made her a white lab coat with my poor sewing skills and a little clip board. There were no noble reasons behind it, I just needed an excuse so she could have a pet dinosaur. My other Barbies were ninjas and secret agents and one was a space alien who was always worried about being deported back to alpha centari.

Barbies do it over and over again, reinforcing Barbie's perfectly feminine roles- supposedly expanding the imagination but only reinforcing sexist ideas of society. Yes, i agree that Barbie (or, Matell is the company i think) has made some progress in the I Can Be campaign as mentioned in another comment but i knew it was all downhill when Barbie glorified pregnancy, pop-on belly and all. Barbie is interested in fashion, Ken in a career. Of course we have to put this into context and remember that Barbie has mainly been all about the fashion, clothes, etc so her "cute" thought bubble doesn't seem totally out of place, but next to Ken's we see Matell should be trying a little harder to avoid being critized for sexism.

This is Mattel. They made Avatar: The Last Airbender toys and made none of the female characters, despite more than half of the main characters being female and the show being very progressive. They instead opted to do alternate outfit versions of the male characters and made more minor characters because they were male.

I never react with surprise when I hear, "Mattel is being sexist" because that's their gig.

Doesn't stop their BS from being continuously irritating anyway, of course.