By Natalia Mehlman Petrzela |
The original Barbie fantasy involved no Malibu mansions or impossibly arched feet or any of the famous doll's more recent multi-hyphenate ambitions of being an astronaut, an anthropologist and a entrepreneur — or any female fantasy at all. The first Barbie, released in the U.S. in 1959, was modeled on a German sex doll named Lilli, a shapely plastic figurine who had blond hair, heavily made-up eyes, skimpy attire and a perpetual pout. Lilli was so popular among men in post-World War II Germany that she quickly evolved from a gold-digging cartoon "floozy" to a three-dimensional fixture found dangling from rearview mirrors and on the shelves of tobacco shops, though never in children's stores. One modern journalist described Lilli as "an Aryan fantasy."
This origin story, along with so-common-they're-clichéd criticisms of Barbie as perpetuating unattainable beauty standards, is why our collective saturation in what has felt like a monthslong bright pink release party for feminist filmmaker Greta Gerwig's forthcoming "Barbie" film should give us pause. This is a preview of Natalia Mehlman Petrzela's latest article. Read the full column here. |
